Rank: 24
Code: Green
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)
Carver County: CarverLink makes plans for 2024
Carver County ranks 24 (down from 19) for broadband access out of 87 counties. They have 2967 households without access to broadband at that speed. Estimates indicate that it will cost $27.5 million to get to ubiquitous broadband in the county.
| County | Residential Location Density | number of residential locations | ≥ 100 Mbps Download/20 Mbps Upload Speeds | unserved households | Cost to close gap |
| Carver | 89.1 | 33,530 | 91.15 | 2967 | 27593100 |
Carver County is lucky to have CarverLink, a publicly owned broadband fiber optics network that celebrated a 10-year anniversary in September 2023. (They shared a nice history of the project at the time.) Unfortunately, they have seen a slight dip in ranking and coverage in the last year, but that’s likely to be from map correction. But their they made a plan in September to help reverse that…
Sept 2023 the County Board unanimously approves moving forward with the preliminary 2024 recommended budget which includes $2.5 million that would be utilized to expand the current Connect Up Carver project with a Connect Up Carver 2.0 project. This project and funding would essentially provide the County what it needs to become the first County in the State of MN to make available high speed bandwidth to all locations within the County that want it.
With leadership from CarverLink, Carver County retains its green ranking.
| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
| 100/20 (2026 goal) | 91.15 | 93.2 | 90.2 | 89.37 | 86.51 | 85.09 | 81.04 |
| 25/3 (2022 goal) | 92.22 | 94 | 93.32 | 93.73 | 92.14 | 89.81 | 98.51 |
Grants:
- 2013, Carver County received ARRA funding for Carverlink, a publicly owned 89-mile base ring with 33 miles of lateral lines. It was completed in Fall of 2013.
Find more articles on broadband in Carver County. (http://tinyurl.com/jxj9v9x)
I am doing the annual look at broadband in each county – based on maps from the Office of Broadband Development and news gathered from the last year. I’m looking at progress toward the 2022 (25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up) and 2026 (100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up) and will code each:
- Red (yikes)
- Yellow (warning)
- Green (good shape)
The maps below on the left comes from the Office of Broadband Development interactive map, reflecting data updated on Oct 31, 2023. Red dots represent locations unserved with wireline broadband; the Orange dots represent underserved locations. The map on the right comes from the FCC National Broadband map showing access to wired and licensed fixed wireless access, the darker the color, the greater percentage of broadband coverage.
