Many local companies are working together to bring enhanced broadband services to underserved, rural Nobles County residents, using approximately 637 miles of fiber to provide high-speed internet to 1,550 households and sites.
Bill Loonan, general manager of Lismore Cooperative Telephone Company, met with Nobles County commissioners and other project stakeholders Wednesday morning in Bigelow to kick off the Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) project.
They are working on a project in the area…
[Nobles County Board Chairman Gene] Metz said Nobles County invested $4 million into this project — money set aside from wind production tax revenues the county received.
“Our counties decided to spend their production tax to bring that service to everybody in the rural area,” Metz said.
Total project costs amount to $27.4 million. Funding for the project consists of 50% loan and 50% grant, with $13.7 million requested through grants and $5.7 million requested through loans. An additional $8 million is a cash substitution amount for the loan portion.
Lismore Cooperative applied for and received a grant of $19.4 million from the Rural Development Broadband ReConnect Program through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Another grant was received through the Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant program. In all, $208,598 was awarded specifically for the FTTP project in Bigelow.
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The total FTTP project cost for Bigelow alone adds up to $695,328. The project area encompasses about 4.16 miles of buried fiber that will serve 113 locations, of which 19 are unserved and 94 are underserved.
Nobles County has awarded $35,000 toward the Bigelow project and the City of Bigelow has funded $15,000. The FTTP network is aimed at bridging the digital divide in the rural city of Bigelow.