THE TOPIC: Savage Communications, Inc., recently received a $1,271,835 grant from the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development to expand broadband in Carlton County.
BACKGROUND: The funds were awarded by DEED through the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant Program, which started in 2014, according to the DEED website.
The 2023 grant dollars will help 503 households and businesses in the following townships add fiber internet access: Barnum, Eagle Lake, Lakeview and Moose Lake, DEED said. Savage Communications will be able to offer broadband service up to 1 gigabit per second for downloads and 1 GBPS upload speeds when the more than $2.5 million project is complete.
The grant program requires a 50% local match, so SCI will contribute all but $50,000 of the $1,271,835 not covered by the grant. At its Feb. 27 meeting, the Carlton County Board of Commissioners approved using $50,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds to put toward the local match if the project received grant funding.
