A planned 700-million-dollar fiber-optic network will pass through Minnesota as it connects Denver and Chicago. A crew is currently working in Morris and Benson.
The Heartland Fiber Project will add roughly two-thousand miles of underground fiber across Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. The system will include connections around Minneapolis.
The network is designed primarily to move large amounts of data between data centers, including traffic generated by artificial-intelligence systems.
Project partners say the added capacity could also improve connectivity for businesses, schools, healthcare providers and government agencies. The announcement does not promise direct residential broadband service or identify every Minnesota community along the final route.
Construction is scheduled to continue for one to two years.
Blandin on Broadband
News and information on broadband use, policy, and trends
