Goodhue County has a way to go to meet the 2022 or 2026 state speed goals. They have good broadband – in that everyone who has access appears to have access to speeds of 100/20 but only 80 percent of the county has access. They need more of what they have.

Green=served Purple=underesrved Red=unserved

Red Wing, in Goodhue County, was a 2015-2016 Blandin Broadband Community,  and has done some innovative programming through Red Wing Ignite, a local organization with national ties.

Goodhue has benefited from several MN broadband grants:

• 2017 – Midco (Midcontinent Communications) – Wanamingo – GRANT $768,600
  Serving  597 unserved households, 76 unserved businesses, and 4 unserved community institutions in the City of Wanamingo in Goodhue County in southeastern Minnesota with service levels up to 1 Gbps up and down.
• 2017 – New Ulm Telecom, Inc. – White Rock Rural East FTTP – GRANT $411,704
  Serving 22 unserved households and 88 unserved businesses in the White Rock area in the northern half of Goodhue County in southeastern Minnesota with services to 1 Gbps download and 1 Gbps upload, exceeding the 2026 state speed goal.
• 2016 – NEW ULM TELECOM, INC. GOODHUE-BELLECHESTER – GRANT: $ 332,328
  Serving 15 unserved households, 46 unserved businesses and 25 underserved households, 43 underserved businesses, and 1 underserved community anchor institution in the city limits and surrounding area of Bellechester in Goodhue County in southeastern MN.
• 2015 – New Ulm Telecom Goodhue Fiber Project
  Grant award: $115,934
  Building middle mile and last mile infrastructure in Goodhue County, Goodhue Township, near the city of Goodhue to provide state speed goal broadband service to 24 households, businesses, and community institutions.

Last year, Goodhue was part of Blandin Foundation’s report on the community return on public investment in broadband, noting the following investments have been made in the community:

Using formulas devised to measure impact of broadband access, Goodhue has the potential to realize:

Using formulas devised to measure impact of broadband access, Goodhue has the potential to realize:

• A combined household economic benefit of broadband of $32,774,600

• A combined increase in residential real estate value of $104,825,572 annually

They are doing good things in Red Wing and Goodhue county (such as a recent $750,000 national award for innovation) but they need to reach the areas without broadband to ensure that the whole county benefits.

Goodhue County could benefit from future grants. In 2019, Nuvera and BEVCOMM applied to upgrade service in Goodhue. (That doesn’t mean they will get the grant; they have only applied.)

Checklist:

• 100/20 ranking: 50 (down 3 places)
• 25/3 ranking: 59
• Has worked with Blandin: yes
• Has received a MN Broadband grant: yes
• Household density: 24
• Number of providers: 12

Details:

• See Blandin Foundation’s matrix of community broadband adoption projects:
  https://blandinfoundation.org/content/uploads/vy/BBC_2015-16_Project_Matrix.pdf
• Find more articles on broadband in Goodhue County. (http://tinyurl.com/z3jwte4)
• Districts: CD 2
  Senate: 21, 58
  House: 21A, 21B, 58B
• Find your reps

I am doing the annual look at broadband in each county – based on maps from the Office of Broadband Development and news gathered from the last year. I’m looking at progress toward the 2022 (25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up) and 2026 (100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up) and will code each:

• Red (yikes)
• Yellow (warning)
• Green (good shape)