The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports an update on what’s going on (or what local folks think should be going on) with federal funding in Minnesota…

Christopher Mitchell, who directs the community broadband networks program at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, estimates there are now about 200,000 people in rural Minnesota without a broadband connection to the home — and about 200,000 people in the Twin Cities who can’t afford one that’s available to them.

“Sometimes I chafe at it being described as a rural problem,” Mitchell said. “There’s a bunch of places in Minnesota that have higher-quality internet access and pay less than I do in St. Paul.”

Second, as with anything involving big spending whether it’s a government or business project, the chances are high that money will be misdirected or overspent.

One of the big differences between now and the rural electrification rollout in the 1930s and 1940s is that small companies, often cooperatives, based in the communities they served did most of the hard work.

Data show some of the biggest access gaps for broadband are in rural areas served by the legacy companies of the Baby Bell system of the 1980s and 1990s. Mitchell said he fears too much of the broadband infrastructure money will go to those big companies, when firms with a local or regional focus have extended broadband to farther reaches.

“The state should be preferencing federal dollars going to projects that are locally rooted,” Mitchell said. “A company where the owner and employees are in the community, go to the local church and shop in the grocery store makes different investment decisions than a national one.”

That thinking aligns with the rising technical knowledge and skills in Native American tribes, where broadband service is statistically most scarce.