Monthly Archives: April 2020

Broadband is a rural issue highlighted during pandemic: Sen Westrom hopeful about legislative funding

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The Wahpeton Daily News reports on the need for better broadband in rural Minnesota during the threat of COVID19…

Nearly 92 percent of Minnesotans have access to broadband internet, however, that means 8 percent are without. With schools, libraries, offices and public spaces closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, people without internet access are being left behind.

“The idea that parts of rural Minnesota have limited or no broadband access most definitely puts some of our citizens at a disadvantage in a time when internet access is crucial to a family or business’s wellbeing,” Wilkin County Commissioner Chairperson Dennis Larson said.

Larson is a member of Minnesota Rural Counties (MRC), a group that focuses on issues that pertain to outstate Minnesota. MRC has recognized that the majority, if not all, of Minnesotans who do not have access to broadband are in rural areas of the state. This troubling impact is felt by students who have difficulty participating in distance learning, workers who can’t work remotely and people unable to connect with friends and family during a period of isolation.

And the optimism of Senator Westrom in legislative funding for broadband…

The unexpected change to virtual classrooms and offices has shined a light on the severity of lack of broadband access in rural areas. Sen. Torrey Westrom (R-Elbow Lake), who represents western and central Minnesota, is an advocate of legislation that would provide $30 million in funding for border-to-border expansion of access to the internet.

“The proposal this year would be another $30 million investment into rural broadband. We are hopeful we can find additional dollars towards this great program that is really important for economic development in rural Minnesota. Rural broadband is like the electricity of today and Minnesota is leading the way with the rural program that I continue to support and we want to continue to do what we can to help make sure rural broadband is available across the state,” Westrom said.

The need is real…

“Without taking anything away from the need to mitigate the immediate health and economic impacts of COVID-19, while also recognizing nearly one-in-five rural residents are being asked to shelter in plae until further notice with virtually no access to adequate internet service, we urge Gov. Walz and state legislative leaders to consider broadband funding as a priority this session and sustain that funding until state speed goals are met,” [MRC Chairman Paul] Gerde said.

 

Pandemic shows that “access to high speed internet is … essential” in Minnesota

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune posts about the situation for rural areas without broadband during the COVID19 threat. Many readers will be familiar, maybe too familiar with what this looks like…

Three-quarters of the Rebarich family sat parked under the golden arches of the local McDonald’s, focused intently on their electronic devices and almost basking in the speedy Wi-Fi.

In the passenger seat, 14-year-old Colton donned headphones while drawing musical notes on an iPad for his school choir class, caramel frappé sitting nearby. In the back, 11-year-old Kaitlyn talked on a video conference with her math teacher. Their mother, Nancy, sat in the driver’s seat checking her e-mails and doing some banking on her phone. …

For the Rebariches, getting a reliable connection means making a 15-mile trip into Virginia from their rural Embarrass, Minn., home almost every day — sometimes twice a day — for hours at a time so that Colton and Kaitlyn can best keep up with their classwork. While they have always been annoyed with a patchy cellular internet connection available at home, the global pandemic has exacerbated their plight.

Some communities are coming up with solutions, but even when they work they are temporary…

In many rural areas, schools are getting creative about bringing internet to their students, too, whether it’s by beaming Wi-Fi into school parking lots, providing Wi-Fi on school buses that deliver food to students on their rural routes or sending home mobile hot spots.

Fourth-grader Michael Zakrajshek has a school-issued hot spot and iPad at his rural Chisholm, Minn., home. But cellular service is so spotty among the tall pines and birch trees surrounding his house that he and his mother, Tawnya Heino, often end up taking the devices to the end of their driveway in search of a better signal.

Often it’s expensive, especially for what the customer gets…

Nathan Redalen, who lives about 11 miles south of Rochester, said he pays about $95 a month for internet but has trouble FaceTiming his grandchildren through an iPad. When his daughter, Kelly Young, came from California to spend time with her parents, she had to rent a co-working space in town to work remotely because the internet wasn’t fast enough.

Redalen, a retired county employee who owns beef cattle and is a township director, said he didn’t think he’d have to rely on internet.

“But it’s getting to the point where we could sure use it,” he said. “We’ll get on [the computer] and here we’ve got messages from four to five days ago that we never could receive.”

We need to make better plans to serve rural Minnesota…

Any steps taken to address connectivity problems during the pandemic will only help make things more equitable for the future, broadband leaders say.

“For our office and the administration, digital equity is such a high priority,” said Angie Dickison, broadband development manager in the state Department of Employment and Economic Development. “We rely on it now more than ever.”

EVENT April 16: Blandin Community Broadband Leadership Webinar – Ownership Models and Provider Partnerships

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For many communities, turning a community broadband vision into a real project depends on their ability to determine if and how to partner with an existing broadband provider.  For many communities, identifying a quality partner speeds project deployment and reduces financial and political risk.  A partnership can range from active community endorsement, to financial contributions in the form of a grant or a loan, to actual community ownership of all or some of the network components with a lease agreement with the selected provider(s).

Community ownership of the physical network may provide long-term benefits that help a community achieve their vision.  Public network ownership can provide for enhanced choice of broadband providers, can enable deployment of Smart City applications around street lighting, public safety, and sewer and water utility operations as well as future 5G deployment.

CTC, a broadband cooperative in Brainerd, is active in multiple community broadband partnerships.  Joe Buttweiler, who leads CTC’s community partnership efforts, will showcase several public-private partnership examples joined by Rick Utecht of Todd County Development Corporation and Jon Rademacher of the City of Little Falls.  Each community has formed a unique partnership to bring fiber-based broadband to their communities.

This is the sixth of ten Blandin webinars on community broadband planning.

EVENT April 14: Blandin Community Broadband Leadership Webinar – Broadband Mapping

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Join community broadband champions from across the state on Tuesday, April 14 at 9 am CDT to learn how maps and mapping tools are essential to community broadband planning and project development.  Diane Wells of MN DEED’s Office of Broadband Development will show how to access standard maps and data from the DEED website.  She will also demonstrate the capacity to build your own customer broadband maps using the interactive mapping system.  Diane will also talk about how the OBD staff handle disputes regarding actual broadband service levels compared to the information displayed on the maps which is critically important to the eligibility and competitiveness of prospective grant applications.

Glenn Fishbine of Geospatial Engineering & Optimization (GEO) will showcase his company’s GIS capabilities for broadband deployment planning.  The dynamic system combines geographic data, broadband construction data and ISP operational data from many public and private sources to analyze prospective broadband deployment financial models.  Communities can work with GEO to quickly come to general findings about the need for financial incentives necessary to support various deployment schemes.  Glenn will also demonstrate their ability to quickly launch and map data obtained from widespread community Internet speed testing.

This is the fifth of ten Blandin webinars on community broadband planning.

A new depth to digital divide and inspiration in time of coronavirus

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The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports on how the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) is using technology to support their patients. Their barriers and resilience both humble and inspire me…

COVID-19 and the resulting protocols and procedures for managing it have affected every single CVT healing center in the U.S. and overseas, which means our clients and their families are grappling with abrupt changes. Our healing centers in Minnesota and Georgia are closed to in-person counseling, but thanks to round-the-clock work — and I mean that literally — by our clinical staff, we are meeting many of our clients’ needs through telehealth technology. However, there are hurdles. Some of our clients cannot access a digital connection with their CVT clinicians because they do not have the necessary technology. Some live in tiny apartments crowded with family members and so lack the privacy needed to meet virtually with their counselors. We are working hard to bridge these divides. In Amman, some of our CVT Jordan clients are connecting virtually with our clinicians, while also confronting increasingly distressing food shortages and the realities of isolation. And at our healing centers in Africa, where we would under normal circumstances hold 10-week counseling sessions, these sessions have been adapted so that our refugee clients completed their counseling cycle in an accelerated time frame.

While my colleagues and I have done our best to adapt to changing work environments and new models of care, our clients once again have led by example with their openness and willingness to explore new means of pursuing healing. Of course, they tell our clinicians, of course we can find a new way to meet. As many of us struggle to adapt to staying home, I am humbled by their resilience. Heartbreakingly, many of our clients are accustomed to isolation, to confinement. As is so often true, we are once again learning from our clients’ experience.

Center for Rural Assembly Hosts webinars on Rural Broadband in the Time of COVID19 April 14 & 22

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From the Rural Assembly…

We invite you to join us for two livestream conversations about the role of broadband access in rural areas and tribal lands in the time of COVID-19.

Description:
In response to COVID-19, local, state, federal and tribal governments have ordered the closing of schools and businesses, and non-essential employees have been instructed to work from home. These necessary changes in daily life require a necessary service – broadband.

Yet, according to the Federal Communications Commission, about 30 million people still do not have broadband access, with 35% of residents in rural areas and 40% of residents in tribal lands lacking service.

During a time when staying home is our collective duty, are rural and tribal residents able to rely on broadband access to continue to study, work, and obtain healthcare?

April 16, 4 PM ET
What is the rural and tribal broadband experience during COVID-19?

This panel conversation will feature the experiences of residents from rural and Native communities in accessing broadband service during a time when Internet access is necessary to work, study, and receive health care, safely. Panelists will represent the education, healthcare, business, and Opportunity Youth sectors. This conversation does not present solutions, instead, it seeks to learn about the impact that substandard or lack of Internet service has on the safety and wellbeing of rural and Native communities.

April 22, 4 PM ET
Has the government’s response been adequate?

The second conversation will feature analysis from broadband advocates about the recent actions from policymakers, including the Federal Communications Commission, in response to the challenge of broadband access in rural and Native communities. Panelists will discuss how these actions have helped, and what needs to improve to adequately address broadband access in rural communities during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Broadband Communities highlights Scott County’s history of broadband partners

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We want community broadband projects to read like a short story. The community realizes a need, they meet a partner, the get married, I mean connected, and like happily ever after. And sometimes it can happen that way and sometimes there are a lot more chapters to the story. It read more like an epic journey – not ups and downs necessarily, just not linear.

Scott County has an epic story and it was recently featured in Broadband Communities through a lens of tracing the partnerships with the county. The article is informative and inspirational, particularly to anyone is a similar boat or starting on a journey. Rather than try to retell it, I thought I’d try to pull out a timeline with a strong recommendation that you check out the article…

  • 2002: works with school district and the county seat of Shakopee to build a hub-and-spoke network connecting public facilities.
  • 2007: Minnesota Emergency Safety Board decided to upgrade the county 911 system – Scott goes fiber
  • 2008: Using public-safety grant money in combination with tax-levy dollars, Scott County implemented a countywide fiber ring with Zayo
  • 2009: expanded westward to join the Carver County network and swapped two fibers for two of Carver County’s fibers And in other directions with other providers
  • 2015: enters into a joint-build partnership with the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community that saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for both parties

All of this and they are still working on plans for the future!

St Louis County – take a minute for a broadband speed test!

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This is a great use of stay at home orders – get people to take a broadband speed test to help the county get a clear picture of what is currently available in the community…

St. Louis County in partnership with the Range Association of Municipalities & Schools (RAMS) is pleased to announce the formal public kickoff of a crowdsourcing project covering all of St. Louis County.  This broadband speed testing initiative is being conducted by GEO Partners, LLC during a time when more people are at home per the Governor’s “Stay at Home” directive. This includes over 30,000 students (K-12) as well as parents required to work from home and thus should provide the most comprehensive, accurate accumulation of actual broadband speeds ever conducted in the County while demand on the system is highest.

The data collected via a one minute speed test can be conducted from any device connected to your broadband signal including cell phones and will result in statistically valid data and mapping. This data will then enable any locale in St. Louis County to utilize the validated information for a broadband expansion project and seek grant funding from the FCC, USDA or Border to Border state program. We anticipate a higher than normal volume of participation, partially because of all the students who are struggling to stay connected to their E Learning while living in rural areas in the county.

RAMS, as an organization has been a strong advocate for broadband expansion across the region.  RAMS’ and St. Louis County Commissioners, recognize that high speed quality broadband is a critical utility to economic development, education, business and virtual healthcare.  RAMS is grateful to the partnership with St. Louis County on this project and encourages everyone to TAKE THE TEST and SHARE THE LINK https://expressoptimizer.net/public/   TAKE IT NOW! Your participation is important and no personal information will be collected.

For further comment Steve Giorgi – RAMS Executive Director is available via Zoom or by phone (sgiorgi@ramsmn.org 218.780.8877) or Matthew Johnson Director of Planning & Community Development  JohnsonM12@stlouiscountymn.gov  or phone (218) 725-5008
or County Board Chairman Michael Jugovich  jugovichm@stlouiscountymn.gov   218.969.4323

Community Broadband Surveys: Blandin Broadband Leadership Webinar Archive

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Thanks to the presenters and attendees for joining the latest Blandin Broadband Leadership Webinar: Community Broadband Surveys. Here we have the description, video archive, slides and chat transcript (get handouts discussed in the webinar)…

The fourth of ten webinars – Community Broadband Surveys – over the next five weeks is April 9 at 9 am CDT.  Join Doug Dawson of CCG Consulting, Tom Johnson, County Coordinator for Nobles County and Nancy Hoffman, Executive Director of the Chisago County EDA/HRA as they talk about best practices in designing, implementing and interpreting community broadband surveys.

Online chat Continue reading →

What do MN arts groups need to survive coronavirus? Broadband makes the shortlist

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The threat of coronavirus has not been kind to Minnesota arts community. All in-person events have cancelled – music, art exhibits, theater and festivals. Audiences have been told to stay home. So artists are learning to improvise and the community at large is finding ways to support them – because we miss art!

MinnPost recently ran an article outlining the issue and some solutions for artists and art organizations…

“It was agreed that resources for individual artists and creative workers would be centralized at the website for Springboard for the Arts. The best information for nonprofits in general is the National Council of Nonprofits.” See especially the recording of the recent webinar, one of the links you’ll find at MCA.

I recently saw a state survey of artists on what they felt they needed. As you can see below, broadband made the top of the lists for both artists and organizations…

Meetings in the Time of Coronavirus: Tips and Tricks of online meetings webinar archive

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Thanks to everyone who attended the webinar on webinars today. It was a conversation as much as a presentation and we all learned from each other. It got us thinking that maybe it makes sense to consider a regular opportunity to meet up online to talk about what we’re learning and need to learn about technology in the time of coronavirus. We could have loose topics decided in advance and maybe try out a few webinar platforms while we’re at it. But the intention is to keep the content sparse and questions plentiful.

We wanted to know if others would be interested – no commitment, just gaging interest. Let us know in the poll below and if you have a topic you want ot suggest – please do it in the comments below – or email me at atreacy@treacyinfo.com

Meetings in the Time of Coronavirus: Tips and Tricks of online meetings
As we move online, all of us are getting a crash course on online meetings. We thought we’d open up our sandbox to talk about how we’ve been hosting Zoom meetings and what we know about Facebook Live, Google Hangouts and Twitter parties. (Mostly Zoom.) We’re not experts, but we’re practitioners. We want to create a safe space for everyone give it a go – you can share your screen or take a chance to ask a question!

And the chat Continue reading →

“Reliable internet is as basic as indoor plumbing and electricity were a century ago.” Duluth News Tribune

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The Duluth News Tribune posts an editorial on the importance of rural broadband, now…

And never has true border-to-border broadband been as urgent or as in dire need as right now, in the midst of our unprecedented public health emergency, with hundreds of thousands of Minnesota employees and students suddenly home, learning and working remotely.

Those who can, that is. Politics too often put ahead of appropriate funding and public policy has left an estimated 14% to 17% of Minnesota households still without access to internet service or connection speeds fast enough for videoconferencing or other aspects of office and class work. The limitations have been frustratingly clear to far too many Minnesotans during this pandemic.

“Broadband is a necessary tool for residents in our region,” Sen. David Tomassoni of Chisholm said in a News Tribune editorial — way back in 2017. Then, the Legislature had a $900 million total funding goal, and about 22% of homes in rural areas still lacked internet connections at even basic speeds.

They outline broadband’s various ups and downs in the MN legislature and end with an quick comparison…

This pandemic has forced all of us to focus on basics. And if it wasn’t clear before, it is now: Reliable internet is as basic as indoor plumbing and electricity were a century ago.

Legislators Push for $2 Billion for Broadband

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Multichannel News reports…

The bipartisan legislators urging big broadband bucks for small broadband operators in the next COVID-19 aid package have written to their respective leadership to put an exclamation point on that push.

Penning the letter were Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) and Reps. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.).

Klobuchar and Cramer introduced a House bill two weeks ago to set aside $2 billion in the next bill for rural broadband connectivity. Welch and Marshall introduced a Senate version.

I wrote about the House Bill earlier. Here’s more info on the bill…

The bill would create a $2 billion FCC fund that could be paid out to the smaller operators for ongoing free or discounted service to low-income residents.

Clearfield announces Home Deployment Kits to Streamline FTTH Ad minimize customer interaction in time of social distancing

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This is a little more industry than I usually post – but I think it’s interesting in an era of social distancing and Clearfield is a Minnesota company; they report…

Clearfield, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLFD), the specialist in fiber management for communication service providers, today announced the introduction of Home Deployment Kits. Designed to streamline and ease the task of FTTH deployment, Home Deployment Kits include everything you need to connect a home to fiber — all in one box. Clearfield’s Home Deployment Kits can reduce install time by 30 minutes per install. For carriers looking to deploy a fiber network to 1,000 homes over the next year, this equates to a time savings of 500 hours with a lower-cost per install team. For those consumers willing to take a do-it-yourself approach, the Home Deployment Kit enables a contactless installation keeping residents and fiber technicians at a safe distance.

US Rep Angie Craig voices support for better broadband at constituent listening session

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U.S. Rep. Angie Craig held a virtual listening session earlier this week and heard what it’s like trying to learn and keep health while sheltering in place without adequation broadband. RiverTowns.Net reports…

U.S. Rep. Angie Craig held a virtual meeting with leaders of Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District on Monday, April 6, 2020, to discuss how communities have been hit by COVID-19.

She learned that broadband is a barrier for online learning…

Stacy Schultz, the principal of Wabasha-Kellogg K-12 School, echoed Ihrke’s comments about the difficulty of transitioning teaching from physical classrooms to online platforms. She also added that her school has faced challenges due to the lack of internet accessibility.

“Internet connection out here in the hills and the valleys of our area here has been difficult for some of our teachers and our students. So our local cable company has been great, but those people who are beyond that reach, again, is a huge need,” Schultz told Craig.

And a barrier for telehealth…

Local hospitals and care providers are also being challenged by the lack of broadband in southeastern Minnesota.

Clinic manager at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital Sue Stiene explained that most primary care visits are now virtual check-ins or phone visits. Like local educators, health care providers are finding that the’ internet is not as accessible as they would like. And, even if all of their patients had broadband access. it would not solve all of the problems.

“We have a high number of elderly patients who don’t have that technology that we can utilize. So, it makes it a little tough,” she said.

Craig voices support for better broadband…

Craig stressed during the meeting that she understands the need for internet access throughout the Second Congressional District. She stated, “I am certainly prioritizing a huge investment in broadband through this next spending bill.”