Rank: 21
Code: Green
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)
Scott County: recent grant should help edge them closer
Scott County ranks 21 for broadband access out of 87 counties. They have 93.67 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up. They have 2892 households without access to broadband at that speed. Estimates indicate that it will cost $26.8 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 |
| Scott | 124.0 | 45,681 | 93.67 | 2892 | 26895600 |
As part of the 7-county metro area, Scott County is a fairly metro county, so they have the advantage of proximity to the Twin Cities and some higher population density areas. They have had slow, incremental improvement since we have been tracking progress.
In December Nuvera received $2.4 million in Border to Border funding to serve 439 unserved and 133 underserved locations in the rural areas of Scott County. Comcast has an application in to the latest (still open) round of Border to Border funding; results should be available in early 2024. In October 2023, the County put out a request for proposals from interested broadband partners. That move will put them in a good position for funding partners when federal (BEAD) funding becomes available. They retain their green ranking.
Broadband Access:
| 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
| 100/20 (2026 goal) | 93.67 | 92.04 | 91.02 | 89.43 | 89.15 | 88.61 | 88.38 |
| 25/3 (2022 goal) | 94.9 | 94.11 | 93.26 | 97.13 | 96.43 | 94.5 | 96.1 |
Grants:
- 2022: Nuvera Communications, Inc., $2,436,427.00
- 2017 – Jaguar Communications – Sand Creek Township Area Broadband Project – GRANT $192,405
- 2019: BEVCOMM (Eckles Telephone Company) – Le Sueur County Project – GRANT $1,857,376
- MN State Grant awarded in 2021: Nuvera Communications, Inc. – Webster Rural FTTP – GRANT $431,260 This last mile project will serve 103 unserved and 178 underserved locations in Wheatland and Webster townships in Rice County, Euraka and Greenvale townships in Dakota County, and New Market and Cedar Lake townships in Scott County.
Find more articles on broadband in Scott County (http://tinyurl.com/gt4afcy)
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.
