Kanabec County Times reports on the ribbon-cutting fiber project at ECE in Braham last week. (I wrote about it earlier and shared video from the event.)

ECE’s diving into the high-speed internet pool began in late 2021 when the board of directors voted to move forward with developing a plan for a full-fiber-to-the-home project.

However, things kicked into high gear in recent months as the replacement of more than 1,000 electrical poles officially began, making the poles also capable of carrying the physical fiber network.

Since 2021, ECE has been busy pursuing state and federal grant money offered exclusively to bring broadband internet to under-served areas. To date, ECE has been awarded $19 million in grants, with another potential $24 million pending approval.

“It’s not just that broadband allows for Netflix, although that’s great — entertainment is important — but it also allows for precision agriculture, for tele-medicine, for young people and adults to engage in learning, or for businesses to engage in commerce, Varilek said. “That’s also why it is worth the investment of state and federal funds.”

ECE has also contributed $46 million from other funding sources to the project. Of those other funding sources, $515,000 came from counties, townships or cities.

“We’re not asking for millions of dollars (from local governments),” said ECE Vice President Ty Houglum. “We’ve asked for a metric, and that metric is not big. The maximum we’ve asked from a county is $200,000, and that is if we covered 100% of their county. For townships, it was $10,000.”

With that money, ECE has run 850 miles of fiber so far. Next year, another 1,200 miles will be put in place. In total, Houglum said, roughly 6,000 miles of fiber constructed will have been run.

This first phase of service has been constructed around much of Isanti County north into Kanabec County. The Pine City area is also the most recent area to be ready to start offering service. Future areas of service, pending grant approvals, include more of Pine County and far eastern Wisconsin.