Rank: 71
Code: Red
(See Blandin Foundation interactive map)

county	25/3	253 rank	100/20	10020 rank	Gig	gig rank	Providers
Koochiching	81.11	73	79.7	71	68.78	33	10

Koochiching County: incremental increases

Koochiching County saw some increased access in 2025, but it’s still less than 80 percent, which is not good, which is how they retain their Red status.

At the time of writing, the MN BEAD final proposal has not been approved, but the current proposal would mean coverage for 1,689 locations in Koochiching County. Most locations will get fiber majority but some of locations will get a satellite, which does not qualify as served in the MN statute.

There is still Line Extension funding yet to be distributed, which helps connect handfuls of  houses just beyond existing infrastructure. (Koochiching has not benefitted from earlier Line Extension awards. So that may be a strategy to consider.)

Statewide, there have been changes with local and national broadband providers, which also leads to uncertainty.

	2025	2024	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017
100/20 (2026 goal)	79.7	74.92	73.83	72.3	72.85	68.6	73.41	73.44	68.55
25/3 (2022 goal)	81.11	76.94	76.37	75.8	80.2	81.57	81.22	73.5	68.6

Possible BEAD support

The Minnesota BEAD Final Proposal has not yet been approved so the information below is subject to change; it includes the number of locations by county specifying provider and broadband type. (Learn more.)

Locations in Koochiching: 1,689
The locations include a mix of fiber and satellite connections.

County	Amazon Kuiper Commercial Services LLC	PAUL BUNYAN COMMUNICATIONS	Space Exploration Technologies Corp.	Wikstrom Telephone Company Inc	Locations         Grand Total	County
Technology Type	Low Earth Orbit Satellite	Fiber	Low Earth Orbit Satellite	Fiber
Koochiching	683	517	166	323	1,689	Koochiching

Local Government Match for State Broadband Grants:

Over the years, many local governments (County, Municipal, Tribal) have invested in broadband deployment. This year, I have tracked how much local investment has been used to match MN State Grants. Local governments invest in other ways too, but this was one number I could realistically find and quantify investment by county, which means investment in that county, whether by county, cities or other local government entity.

In Koochiching $26,000 was invested in one program over the years.

New Posts from 2025:

• Bois Forte-CTC extends NECS middle mile broadband to 2,000 locations around Lake Vermilion (St Louis and Koochiching Counties)

Highlights from Past Reports

• 2023 estimates indicated that it would cost $16.9 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, Koochiching ranked 78 using Microsoft’s Digital Equity Tool, which looks at various factors of a community.

Past Grants

• 2023: Koochiching County – Koochiching County International Falls Economic Development – GRANT $77,300
• 2015 – Midcontinent Little Fork Middle Mile – Grant award: $277,448
• Paul Bunyan Communications – North Central Minnesota Fiber Project– GRANT $2,562,916

Find more articles on broadband in Koochiching. (http://tinyurl.com/gom8mqy)

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)