Before receiving Border to Border funding, Harmony MN was a tough place to work remotely, as Post-Bulletin reports…
“During the pandemic, you had people working from home, kids doing school from home, so everyone was on the internet,” said Skaalen, who worked from home half the time in his job as president and CEO of First Southeast Bank in Harmony, Minnesota. “You’re all kind of sharing this pool of internet. There were just more chances of drops.”
At the time, the city’s internet infrastructure did not support broadband, meaning speeds were well below the state’s goal of 100 mbps — megabits per second — for download and 20 mbps upload. Under those speeds, a customer is defined as “underserved” according to the state. For folks getting speeds under 25 mbps down and 3 mbps up, they are defined as “unserved,” according to Bree Maki, executive director of the Office of Broadband Development for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.
The grants have helped get them connected…
Currently, Maki said, there are 291,000 locations in Minnesota that are either unserved or underserved, which is about 12% of homes or businesses. The state would like to fill in those gaps by 2026. An infusion of $67 million in grants allocated during the last legislative session will put a dent in that need. Federal funding totaling $652 million over five years that was allocated to Minnesota will go even further to bringing high-speed internet to all Minnesotans.
In 2019 and 2020, grants from the state helped Harmony Telephone start installing fiber optic cables in its territory. The company has continued to take advantage of cost-share grants from DEED. In 2023, Harmony Telephone received $3.9 million for a pair of projects that, combined with $6.1 million in local match, will bring gigabite speeds to 311 households, businesses and farms north of Fountain and 68 households, businesses and farms in rural portions of Fillmore County north of Preston.
Meanwhile, the company has finished putting fiber in the ground in Harmony this spring and hopes to have all customers converted over to high-speed broadband by the end of the year, Huffman said.
The area is getting connected too…
Harmony Telephone isn’t alone in trying to expand broadband access in its region. Bevcomm, which services parts of Goodhue and Dodge counties in Southeast Minnesota plus territories in central Minnesota and Wisconsin, has been expanding its broadband services.
Bill Eckles, CEO at Bevcomm, said of the company’s broadband, 70% are connected with fiber optics, and 30% are DSL or coaxial cable.