Rank: 74
Code: Red
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)

Kandiyohi County: from code yellow to red

Kandiyohi County ranks 74 for broadband access out of 87 counties. They have 69.12 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up. They have 5427 households without access to broadband at that speed. Estimates indicate that it will cost $50.4 million to get to ubiquitous broadband in the county.

Kandiyohi County has been working on better broadband for years. They saw a big improvement in 2019, but have been stagnant since. They came close to getting better broadband with CTC and a grant but that didn’t work out in the end.

They had been hovering around 70 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up. They saw a decrease to 68.18 percent in 2022, which is probably due to increased granularity of reporting within a margin of error.

In December 2022, Federated was awarded a Border to Border grant of almost $5 million to serve 343 unserved and 302 underserved homes, businesses, farms, and community anchor institutions in the Kandiyohi County.  In 2023, Meeker Coop Light & Power was awarded two grants: one for $1.4 million to serve 185  locations in Kandiyohi and another  $533,959 to serve 216 households, farms, businesses and community anchor institutions. In June 2023,  United States Department of Agriculture announced a $19 million ReConnect round four grant to Meeker Cooperative Light and Power Association for a fiber-to-the-premises project covering portions of Meeker, Kandiyohi and Stearns counties.

Between Federated and Meeker Coop, they are applied for five grants in the latest Border to Border broadband grant round, which is still open but winner should be announced in early 2024.

Kandiyohi is creating partnerships that should help them get better broadband, especially when federal (BEAD) funding becomes available.

Broadband Access:

Grants:

• 2023: Meeker Coop Light & Power – Lake Elizabeth-East Lake Lillian Townships – GRANT $1,428,066
• 2023: Meeker Coop Light & Power – Harrison Township – GRANT $533,959
• 2022: Federated Telephone Cooperative, $4,913,505.50

• 2016 – FRONTIER KANDIYOHI INITIATIVE – GRANT: $1,015,275
• 2015 – MVTV Wireless Middle Mile – Grant award: $808,080
• 2017, Consolidated Telecommunications Co. (CTC) was awarded a $4.94 million grant to improve serves in New London, Spicer and Willmar, and Frontier was awarded a grant of $1.02 million to improve service in rural Kandiyohi County. Unfortunately, the CTC project did not work out.

Find more articles on broadband in Kandiyohi. (http://tinyurl.com/z9wk7bm)

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.