Rank: 77
Code: Red
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)

Cottonwood County: still stuck with less than 70 percent coverage

Cottonwood County ranks 76 (down 1) for broadband access out of 87 counties. Cottonwood has been hovering at the same percentage since 2018.

Windom, the county seat of Cottonwood County, has had an enviable municipal broadband network since 2004. Households in Windom are well served. But outside of Windom, connections are mixed.

Next Century Cities profiled in 2024:
Cottonwood County
Population: 11,356
Households without a computer: 9.3%
Households without Internet: 17%
Persons in Poverty: 13.2%

• Over the years, Cottonwood County (or cities within) has not invested matching funds for any successful MN Broadband grants.
• Cottonwood County will benefit from a 2024 $395,138 MN Broadband grant (Round 10) award that will serve 425 locations between Cottonwood and Brown Counties.
• Cottonwood County will not benefit from line extension awards.
• Last years’ estimates indicated that it would cost $14.8 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, Cottonwood ranked 77 using Microsoft’s Digital Equity Tool, which looks at various factors of a community.

2024 Grants:

• County: Brown, Cottonwood
  Hanson Communications
  Hanson – Comfrey FTTP
  Grant: $395,138
  Local Match: $592,711
  Total Budget: $987,849
  Hanson Communications will build and operate a Fiber to the Premises network to cover the unserved and underserved areas in Comfrey, MN. Hanson has identified this project as an area in need of better broadband as nearly 85% of the town is unserved according to the Minnesota definition of broadband service. There are 245 total fiber passings in the project including 161 unserved households, 47 unserved businesses, and 5 unserved community anchor institutions, including the school, the fire station, the City office, the post office and the community center. There are an additional 27 underserved households, and 5 businesses. Many of the people who work and live in Comfrey are connected to agriculture in some way, shape or form. Farmers, specifically, can achieve heightened efficiency and tap into new markets and resources by integrating broadband into their farming and livestock operations. The city of Comfrey has contributed $10,000 toward the project.

Past Grants:

• 2016 – WOODSTOCK TELEPHONE WESTBROOK – GRANT: $412,391
• 2015 – MVTV Wireless Middle Mile – Grant award: $808,080
• 2010 – ARRA funding for City of Windom – SWMBG will build FTTP (Fiber to the Premise) infrastructure to eight rural communities in Southwestern Minnesota.

Find more articles on broadband in Cottonwood County. (http://tinyurl.com/gnqcknv)

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)