The Timberjay reports on the FCC rejection of LTD Broadband’s application for RDOF money…

The Federal Communications Commission last week rejected troubled LTD Communication’s $1.3 billion application to build high-speed broadband internet networks in Minnesota and across the nation, a move that should open the door for other companies to provide more timely broadband solutions across a wide swath of the North Country.

I’ve written about this rejection earlier and plenty of local media have covered it so I won’t recap the general information but here’s the local impact…

An example of a North Country location that could benefit from new funding opportunities is Cook. Installation of a state-assisted broadband network by Paul Bunyan Communications for the community may get underway in the next few weeks, but the company had to remove some locations from its plans because they fell just inside of federal tracts awarded to LTD. Given that the news is fresh, Paul Bunyan officials have yet to issue any formal statements about future possibilities for LTD-forfeited tracts, and no such plan for Cook is known to be in the works. But new options are now available for numerous Minnesota communities now that they are no longer blocked from them by LTD.