This week, Cass County voted to invest in TDS application to Border to Border funds…

Administrator Stevenson provided seven American Rescue Plan Act Grant (ARPA) Phase III grant applications for Board consideration. He noted that there were $401,874 in requests with $264,984 of remaining funds. The Board asked applicants to provide a brief description of their project and answer questions before they took action. After presentations and a discussion by the Board, Commissioner Gaalswyk made a motion and Commissioner Peterson seconded the motion to fund each grant application as follows; My Neighbor to Love Coalition $7,500; the City of Remer and Remer Ambulance $50,000; Hackensack Game Changers Child Care Team $108,000; Pine River Backus Family Center $54,874; Arvig Telephone Company dba TDS Telecom $30,610; Balsam Moon Preserve $3,000; Northland Community Schools $15,000.

And here’ s more info from the application:

• Arvig Telephone Company (Arvig), a subsidiary of TDS Telecommunications LLC (TDS Telecom), intends to apply for a Minnesota Border-to-Border Broadband Grant in the state’s 2023 grant round.
• This project will serve a total of 7,262 locations – 6,997 households and 265 businesses. Approximately 7,011 locations are in Cass County and approximately 251 of these locations are in counties that border Cass County.
• TDS Telecom proposes a last-mile project that will build facilities to unserved/underserved areas within Arvig Telephone Company, which encompasses five local exchange service areas (Backus, Hackensack, Pequot Lakes, Pine River, and Woman Lake) located primarily in Cass County.
• The project will upgrade “last-mile” facilities by deploying a FTTH network using Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) technology. GPON can deliver symmetrical speeds of up to 8Gbps to all locations.