Paul Bunyan Communications shares…

Paul Bunyan Communications has been awarded a $5.5 million State of Minnesota Border-to-Border Broadband low-density pilot grant to serve areas of Angora, Alango, Balkan, Beatty, and Owens Townships in St Louis County.
The Low-Population Density Program will fund up to 75% of eligible project costs to help providers build out broadband infrastructure in some of the more remote or costly-to-serve areas of the state with the cooperative investing the remainder to expand its all-fiber optic network to these areas. This project is estimated to cost $7,526,055, with the State of Minnesota’s Low-Population Density Program grant contributing $5,569,28, Paul Bunyan Communications investing $1,881,513, Angora Township $33,104, and Balkan Township $42,157.
The Angora, Alango, Beatty, and Owens Township areas are primarily between Cook and Britt along US Highway 53. The Balkan Township project will reach nearly every home in Balkan Township which is north of Chisholm. It also includes several locations in the unorganized township west of Balkan-north, including those around Dewey and McCormack Lakes.
“Our cooperative has a long history of expanding our network to underserved areas but it has become increasingly challenging to go it alone without grant support as this project demonstrates. These are very rural areas and that makes the cost of construction challenging. Even for our not-for-profit cooperative, without this low density program these areas would be too costly to expand to. Thanks to this program these areas will get broadband access with Internet speeds up to a 10 Gigabits per second and become part of one of the largest rural Gigabit networks in the country,” said Gary Johnson, Paul Bunyan Communications CEO/General Manager.
Paul Bunyan Communications expects to develop the expansion plans over the next 1-2 years and will contact locations along the upcoming expansion routes once those plans are finalized.
“We are very excited about this project! This is going to bring symmetrical fiber-optic broadband to very rural locations that desperately need it. This will be very impactful for many of the residents in these areas who will now be able to work from home, access virtual education, leverage telehealth, and enjoy the many other benefits of quality broadband internet services that weren’t available .” added Steve Howard, Paul Bunyan Communications Information Technology and Development Manager. “We are thankful to the State of Minnesota for creating this additional low-density pilot grant program that will enable us to expand to these areas and for our elected state officials who have supported funding the Border-to-Border broadband grant program,” said Howard.
“This is going to make a world of difference in so many ways to a lot of people right here in northern Minnesota!” said Johnson.
Cooperative’s services will become available once the network is operational including GigaZone™, service options like unprecedented broadband Internet speeds of up to 10 Gigabits per second and low cost unlimited local and long distance GigaZone™ voice service. There is no membership fee to join Paul Bunyan Communications, membership is included by subscribing to either local phone service or GigaZone™ Internet service.