Sometimes the Minnesota County Broadband Profiles spur a conversation; such is the case with Steve Kraus in Waseca County. Steve began working on better broadband in the county as an American Connection Corps (ACC) Fellow, which is project of Lead for America, a national program of AmeriCorps. He is one piece of a smart strategy in Waseca for better broadband and more. So are the Waseca County Commissioners; I was delighted to spend some time with all of them talking about their broadband strategy via Zoom.

I wanted to share the video, which is full of great stories and frontline examples, such as having to finish your online work before 6am on a satellite connection before your neighbors wake up and go online too and a lot of praise for the Office of Broadband Development.

As a reminder, Waseca ranks 64 out of 87 with a red code. Part of the cause for the code is that Waseca has stalled around 75 percent access to broadband at speeds of 100 Mbps down and 20 up since 2018. Also, there is a discrepancy between broadband coverage depending on whether you include fixed wireless broadband or only wireline broadband. Minnesota doesn’t currently take fixed wireless into consideration when defining areas eligible for grants; the federal government does include access to fixed wireless as broadband. That could make a big difference to who is eligible for BEAD funding.

Waseca worked with local provider, Bevcomm, on a low density border-to-border grant request to OBD in the latest (and still current) funding round (Round 9). That is both the culmination and start of a path to success. We talked about their recipe for success, starting with key ingredients:

• Informed Public Sector
  Waseca County has engaged, forward-thinking County Commissioners (Brian Harguth, Doug Christopherson, DeAnne Malterer and Brad Krause). As a former teacher, De was acutely aware of the needs of students, especially during the pandemic. (Dee is also on the Telecommunications and Technology Steering Committee through the National Association of Counties.) The other Commissioners (including Blair Nelson, who has recently passed) understand how farming families rely on broadband for precision agriculture, for second-income opportunities, access to education and telehealth.
  Michael Johnson, the county administrator, has experience working for local broadband provider. He is an account, not an engineer, but his experience means he understands nuances that someone else might not.
• Dedicated Staff
  The county was fortunate to have Steve Kraus step in as an ACC Fellow. Having a full time, dedicated staff person to drive the priority and provide support to the effort got things done. For example, using maps provided by the Office of Broadband Development, Steve was able to find broadband providers who served some portion of the county and was able to contact each one to gauge interest and bandwidth for expanding access. That is how they found Bevcomm
• Local Champions
  Advanced Waseca County is a group that meets quarterly to make Waseca County better. The stakeholders include a wide range of community members from education, local businesses, public safety, county commissioners, librarians, ACC fellow and more. They have had success rebuilding an historic baseball stadium and building a waterpark. As a group, they have decided that current priorities include:
  • Broadband
  • Preparing young people for modern jobs
  • Supporting downtown redevelopment
• Access to funding
  Waseca County does not have a large population. And existing infrastructure is minimal. Access to state and federal funds help make FTTP financially feasible.  Th County has just over $1 million in ARPA and CARES funding to dedicate to broadband. Six of the townships in Waseca County are able to invest funds at this point. They have an application in for State funds and are looking closely at federal (BEAD) funding.

Those are the ingredients that could help Waseca success. The next step is building a plan. For Waseca, it started with Steve digging into a potential provider partner as described above. He spoke to many providers, but it was Bill Eckles at Bevcomm who suggested a lunch and immediately began a partnership. Steve gives a nod to support from the Office of Broadband Development (OBD) and Barbara Droher Kline of Le Sueur County. BEVCOMM was interested in working with Waseca on grant proposals MN state funding. The were unsuccessful in the 8^th round of funding on a proposal that spanned two counties; OBD suggested that Waseca focus on their county alone. So that is what they have done for the current (9^th) round of funding. The county committed funds to the project too. They are waiting to hear back on whether they receive funding.

But regardless of the success of this round, the county has found the final ingredient that they needed to move forward, an engaged provider partner.

Things are going well but there are some challenges. For example, Waseca was held back with situation with LTD Broadband nearly getting federal funding through the RDOF program. LTD was awarded an exclusive opportunity to apply for funds in parts of Minnesota. Between the opportunity and the results (they didn’t get the funds), Waseca and other communities were in a limbo where they could not receive other state or federal funds. They lost some ground.

There is some concern about veracity of broadband maps. For example, Steve called the broadband providers listed in the area on the MN Broadband map but found out that many were not interested in developing a partnership to improve broadband. But there is also a lot of faith in the team that they have assembled; I would include the Office of Broadband Development, Bevcomm, County Commission, County Administrator and Steve Kraus on that team.