Rank: 20
Code: Green
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)

Anoka County Almost there – still

Anoka County coverage dips slightly and rank dips from 11 to 20 but they remain very close to covered.  They will benefit from a recently announced MN Broadband grant and that will help.

They have stayed constant with about 96 percent coverage of broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up since 2017.  They have the advantage of being part of the 7-county metro area which doesn’t mean the county doesn’t have rural areas but proximity to urban areas helps build a market of user and closer deployment.

• Over the years, Anoka County (or cities within) has invested $164795 (total) for match for 1 successful MN Broadband grants. This is an indicator of local government that is engaged and (literally) invested in better, local broadband.
• Anoka County will benefit from a 2024 $800,000 MN Broadband grant (Round 10) award that will serve 237 locations (between Anoka and Chisago Counties.
• Anoka County will benefit from 20 line extension awards (Rounds 1 and 2), which extend broadband to individual locations.
• In Oct 2024, the County board approved up to $1.6 million in ARPA funds for the broadband.
• Last years’ estimates indicated that it would cost $43 million to get ubiquitous broadband in the county. (I haven’t updated the number because recent report offers scenarios of costs based on BEAD funding rules that make current estimates less predictable than in the past. Yet, I think the number is still helpful.)
• In 2022, Anoka County worked with Blandin Foundation as an IRBC (Iron Range Broadband Community) and they were cohorts in Blandin’s inaugural Accelerate! program.
• In the past, a roadblock for Anoka was that the county is widely served by a national provider that had not been upgrading the connections in their area.
• In 2022, Anoka ranked 14 using Microsoft’s Digital Equity Tool, which looks at various factors of a community.
• Anoka received an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) grant in 2013, which has helped serve government facilities.
• Anoka gets a green ranking because they are so close to goal. Anoka is part of the seven county metro area, which means the population density is much of the county makes it an attractive market for providers, but there are certainly rural parts to Anoka County as well.

Broadband Access:

2024 Grants:

• County: Anoka, Chisago
  Midco
  Midco North Central
  Grant: $801,700
  Local Match: $801,700
  Total Budget: $1,603,400
  Midco will build fiber to the premises (FTTP) plant to 237 eligible passings in portions of Anoka and Chisago counties. This project will extend reliable broadband service to 146 unserved and 79 underserved homes, and 8 unserved and 2 underserved business, and 2 unserved farms. Chisago County will contribute $149,000 and the City of Wyoming will contribute $5,000 toward the project. Midco provides services to about 493,000 customers, many of which live in rural Minnesota.

Previous Grants:

• 2023: Comcast-Xfinity – Comcast/City of Nowthen – GRANT $2,549,413
• 2022: Tekstar Communications Inc, dba Arvig, $219,727

• 2013: The County received federal (ARRA) funding in 2013. In partnership with Zayo, the County was able to build a 287-mile broadband network for government facilities.

Find more articles on broadband in Anoka County.(http://tinyurl.com/zuvt4x7)

The maps below on the left comes from the Office of Broadband Development interactive map, reflecting data updated on December 16, 2024. Red dots represent locations unserved locations. Above I have tracked wireline access because that is the Minnesota definition of broadband. The info below includes wired and wireless. BEAD includes fixed wireless connections as served locations. (I wrote more on the distinction between the two last year, which may be if interest in the numbers range greatly for your 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)