From the Office of Broadband Development…
Broadband Matters: Office of Broadband Development Updates
- BEAD updates
- OBD weekly office hours, extended through April 15
- OBD, site visit in Southwest Minnesota
- Congratulations to OBD’s Karrie Jansen!
- Governor’s Task Force on Broadband, next meeting March 20
BEAD updates
The BEAD Pre-Qualification process in Minnesota has been extended, and will now close tomorrow, March 13, 2025 at 11:59pm CST. This change and its impact on future dates has been reflected on the OBD BEAD timeline.
Updated BEAD resources for Minnesota include:
- An updated list of BEAD Eligible Locations was posted on March 3, 2025. Asterisk denotes those locations removed from BEAD eligibility from the NTIA-approved list of January 17 due to satisfying the requirements of one of NTIA’s allowed Reason Codes.
- List of unserved and underserved locations by county in Minnesota is available to download as BEAD Eligible Locations by County (PDF) or BEAD Eligible Locations by County (XLSX).
- Updated FAQs are available on the BEAD Pre-Qualification FAQ and BEAD Subgrantee Selection FAQ
Submit all questions for the FAQ via online web form below. OBD will continue to review responses as a team and with our federal partner, and the FAQs will be updated weekly.
OBD weekly office hours, extended through April 15
Office hours are being extended through April 15, register for the added sessions below!
Weekly office hours provide updates on the federal BEAD program in MN, and are Tuesdays at 11am through April 15. Registration is open for the sessions below:
- March 18, register here
- March 25, register here. This will serve as a BEAD Application Information Session for the upcoming first round of BEAD subgrantee selection. In this session, OBD will walk through the application requirements and an overview of the application process will be given through a demo of the application portal. The session will be recorded and posted to the OBD BEAD page.
- April 1, register here
- NEW SESSION, April 8, register here
- NEW SESSION, April 15, register here
OBD, site visit in Southwest Minnesota
With the unusually warm weather this winter, a site visit was completed on March 3 to Woodstock Communication’s project in Southwest Minnesota near Slayton.
Woodstock was granted $1.3 million in state funds to construct and connect customers to fiber, along with $1.6 million in matching funds from Murray County and Woodstock Communications.
This project near Lake Sarah and Lake Shetek is close to done, connecting 369 customers using 44 miles of fiber.
Pictured left: Terry Nelson, General Manager of Woodstock Communications, and Carol Bossuyt, a Broadband Grants Specialist with OBD.
Congratulations to OBD’s Karrie Jansen!
Karrie was promoted from the teams Broadband Grants Administrator to the Broadband Infrastructure Grants Supervisor! Karrie has worked in the public sector for over 31 years, and worked in County Government before joining the Office of Broadband Development in 2022. Congratulations, Karrie!
Governor’s Task Force on Broadband, next meeting March 20
The Broadband Task Force will be meeting on Thursday March 20 at 10am. This meeting will be held virtually and is open to anyone from the public to attend. The Teams link to join the meeting will be included as usual at the top of the meeting agenda, which will be posted along with other information on past meetings on the Broadband Task Force webpage.
More information on this and past meetings can be found on the Broadband Task Force’s webpage.
Please email deed.broadband@state.mn.us or call 651-259-7610 with questions, or requests for additional information on any of the above.
Pictured right: 12-year-old broadband champions, Cooper and Crosby, used last week’s snowfall to create a Broadband Snow Mascot, safety vest and all!