Rank:64
Code: Red
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)

Waseca County: stalled at 75 percent broadband access

Waseca County ranks 64 for broadband access out of 87 counties. They have 76.12 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up. They have 1699 households without access to broadband at that speed. Estimates indicate that it will cost $15.8 million to get to ubiquitous broadband in the county.

Waseca County has been hovering around 75 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up since 2018. I don’t see any grants in the hopper or yet to be spent. They retain their red ranking.

Also, they are also concerned about being in a potentially precarious position because looking at access in the County using the FCC National Map there is a big discrepancy between wireline access (75.4 percent coverage) and wireline with fixed wireless (98.56 percent). Minnesota doesn’t currently take fixed wireless into consideration when defining areas eligible for grants; the federal government does include access to fixed wireless. That could make a big difference to who is eligible for BEAD funding.

Broadband Access:

Grant:

• MN State Grants awarded in 2021: BEVCOMM (Cannon Valley Telecom, Inc.) – Rural Morristown Fiber Expansion Project – GRANT $210,692 This last mile project will serve approximately 14 unserved and 94 underserved locations in portions of Rice, Waseca, and Steele counties.

Find more articles on broadband in Waseca County (http://tinyurl.com/z845jwy)

Added: Jan 10 based on info from Waseca: Waseca County has teamed up with Bevcomm for a low density border-to-border grant request to OBD. It was submitted on time for this most recent round. All the County Commissioners and our County Administrator have been absolutely great to work with and are 100 percent on board with expanding broadband services to all of Waseca County.

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.