The top rated county in Minnesota for access to broadband speeds of 100/20, for all practical purposes, Rock County has reached the MN broadband goals for both 2022 and 2026.

Green=served Purple=underesrved Red=unserved

Rock County benefited from two MN broadband grants:

• 2015 – MVTV Wireless Middle Mile
  Grant award: $808,080
  This project is a Middle Mile broadband infrastructure buildout to upgrade backhaul capacity between site locations within 20 southwestern Minnesota counties: Blue Earth, Chippewa, Cottonwood, Jackson, Kandiyohi, Lac Qui Parle, Lincoln, Lyon, Meeker, Murray, Nicollet, Nobles, Pipestone, Rock, Redwood, Renville, Sibley Swift, Watonwan, and Yellow Medicine.
• 2014 – Rock County Broadband Alliance (RCBA), FTTP Project
  Award: $5 million. Total project cost: $12.85 million. Impact: service to 1,261 homes and farms, 68 businesses, and 21 community institutions in Rock County.

The 2014 project set Rock County in a good direction.  In the summer of 2017, Rock County  shared their community broadband expertise by inviting the Minnesota Broadband Task Force to visit the area and learn more about the program. Rock County is a member of the 2018-2020 Blandin Broadband Community  cohort.  Residents are implementing projects to boost broadband adoption and sophistication of use as an economic development strategy.

Checklist:

• 100/20 ranking: 1 (no change)
• 25/3 ranking: 2
• Has worked with Blandin: yes
• Has received a MN Broadband grant: yes
• Household density: 8.1
• Number of providers: 10

Details:

• Find more articles on broadband in Rock County (http://tinyurl.com/jjeesst)
• Districts: CD 1
  Senate: 22
  House: 22A
• 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)