I’ve been looping back with counties to see how things are going. Great to get an update from Sherburne County…

In the past few years, the Sherburne County Public Works Department has been installing conduit in strategic areas throughout the county as part of several road projects that are included within our 5-year county road improvement plan. The County’s goal in installing this conduit infrastructure is to “dig once” and facilitate the expansion of broadband service for County residents, businesses, institutions and public facilities.

An RFP for the fiber optic conduit was released in 2018 and Arvig was awarded the contract to fill several portions of the conduit. The County has continued to install additional conduit since that time and we hope to work with additional providers to improve the broadband service throughout the County over the next several years.

The County has also recently been accepted into DEED’s Telecommuter Forward program and we look forward to working with DEED’s staff to promote telecommuting options to our residents and business owners.

I look forward to hearing more about the Telecommuter Forward program as that gets off the ground.