Grant County is not likely to make the speed goals for either 2022 or 2026. They are particularly behind when it comes to access to 100/20 and there has been little movement forward in the past few years.

Green=served Purple=underesrved Red=unserved

In 2010, Grant County was part of an unsuccessful attempt by Federated Telephone to get federal (ARRA) funding. At about the same time (2013), the Minnesota Broadband Task Force heard from a librarian in Grant County about broadband access. So, although they have been aware of and working on the broadband issue for a while,  recently there hasn’t been much movement forward.

Grant is in a precarious position for two reasons: more than 10 percent of the county is unserved and more than 50 percent is underserved. This will have an impact on what kind of homework teachers can assign, the ability to start a home business and home resale value.

Checklist:

• 100/20 ranking: 75 (down from 65)
• 25/3 ranking: 40
• Has worked with Blandin: no
• Has received a MN Broadband grant: no
• Household density: 4.5
• Number of providers: 9

Details:

• Find more articles on broadband in Grant County. (http://tinyurl.com/z9n7ea6)
• Districts: CD 7
  Senate: 12
  House: 12A
• 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)