The Office of Broadband Development maps and county data are out! I am looking a percentage covered at various speeds, comparing 100/20 rates and ranking and (here) comparing county speeds and ranking for 25/3 speeds. I’m doing this in three posts because the I think the data is valuable but best in small bites.

The MN State broadband speed goals are 25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up by 2002 and 100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps by 2026. The 2022 goal ought to be a benchmark toward the 2026 goals, but having looked at these number for a few years now I can see that while some counties take that to heart, others are in danger of plateauing with 25/3.

I look at this info as a call to help for two groups of counties. First there are the counties that rank near the bottom. They need to expand and upgrade broadband. Second, are the counties that have been hovering around the same percent covered (where that’s not 99+ percent) and are losing ground in the ranking. The exception would be if those counties are seeing a steep growth in the 100/20 percentage and ranking – which might indicate a slower but more future-forward plan.

For the most part the rankings were similar from 2018 to 2019. A few folks moved up or down a few places – based as much as growth round them as lack/burst of local growth. However, it’s probably worth looking at how your county stands compared to last year and why. Are you on the right trajectory to meet the 2022 and 2026 goals?

The one outlier was Brown County. They went from 96 percentage covered in 2018 to 84 percent coverage in 2019. It sounds like that is due to a provider supplying the Office of Broadband with more granular data that resulted in better data and reduced coverage. Few counties saw the decrease in coverage for the others that did, the reason is probably similar but in what I’d call a margin of error.

The best way to use this data is to download the spreadsheet. I am going to post an abridged version below (with fewer columns).