The Task Force heard from Otter Tail County on their broadband experience. It was nice to hear about the impact Blandin has had on their access. The Office of Broadband Development gave an update of how things are going with BEAD and other programs. John Horrigan from Benton Institute for Broadband and Society talked about access and adoption and trends over time to percentage of coverage and speeds as well as changes in recent goals from speed, access and affordability to more access and affordability.

The Task Force also decided to send a comment to the FCC in support of E-Rate

Meeting Agenda

10:00 a.m. – 10:05 a.m. Welcome from Teddy Bekele, Chair, Minnesota Governor’s Task Force on Broadband and approval of minutes from June Task Force meeting.

10:05 a.m. – 10:35 a.m. – Amy Baldwin, Community Development Director, CDA & HRA Executive Director, Otter Tail County, overview of work on innovation around addressing the digital divide.

Otter Tail really started making a concerted effort to improve broadband in 2019. They watched the broadband county profiles and realized the needed help to expand access. The townships and county  invested by matching border to border grants.  In 2020, they were a Blandin Broadband Community and that made a big difference in adoption.

Questions:

• What has surprised you?
  Seeing how many plans have come to fruition.

10:35 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. – Office of Broadband Development (OBD) overview and updates from Bree Maki (Executive Director, OBD).

• Attended cable association meeting
• Working on 21 grant close outs – 9 will get extended
• Staff is doing site visits and validations
• Line Extension needs to be done by the end of 2026
• Working on contracting and new grant management system for BEAD
• Capital Projects desk review went well
• Capital Projects have released funds so now OBD can move that into more Line Extension ($3.7 million) – and they got an extension
• 124 Capital Projects were awarded 92 are completed
• Concerns around locates (utility et al) and timelines – looking to build up capacity and accuracy
• BEAD – got notice that NTIA has new supplemental policy. They will look at new locations, do a challenge round, and reassess. Unfortunately OBD does not have that list of addresses now. Only Feds do. Also not privy to all Fed funding distribution. Also upper funding limit for bids is $5200 per location. Around 40 percent of locations are now defaulting or not going to be upgraded to a speed that meets Minnesota 2026 speed goals.
  Rumor has it there will be approximately 8600 locations found in the new iteration of the map. OBD also has questions about compliance with things such as pole attachments.
  Staff is busy trying to prepare for when funding and rules are completed. About 2/3 of projects are awaiting scope changes.
  There were 95 contracts, but providers are dropping out.

Question:

• There have been problems with locates for years. They have been trying to get everyone GIS maps with all of their infrastructure. USIC has taken over and the quality has declined. Until everything is mapped, we will continue to have problems.

10:45 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. – John Horrigan, Senior Fellow, Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, presentation considering challenges and next steps of Minnesota’s state speed goals.

John spoke about access and adoption and trends over time to percentage of coverage and speeds. Minnesota was “well above average” until recently. There’s also been a reduced focus on increasing speed with the current Administration. John talks about the impact of the Big Beautiful Bill on broadband access/adopt for low income households.

Questions

WISPA wants to talk about affordability because access will become less of an issue. Seems like you’re disappointed in reduced speed. Why is gig a standard when almost no one needs that much?
There’s an historical reason for gig. The broadband plan 15 years ago focused on wireline. Gamers want faster speeds. Also, apps and uses are built with standard speeds in mind. Developers could build to higher bandwidth if more people had it.AI will demand more bandwidth.

Is symmetrical still an issue/debate?
We need to increasingly thing of upload speed. Providers can engineer symmetrical connections.

11:30 a.m. – 11:35 a.m. – Open the floor to other business, October’s meeting plans, and meeting wrap-up.

What about E-Rate? Do we want to discuss? Should we do something?

E-Rate is essential to schools, libraries and health care. That problem has been around a long time. It has had bipartisan support. It built infrastructure. It’s under review. The question is “should it continue?” People are worried because losing it will impact access and affordability.

The FCC is looking for comments. Does the Task Force want to comment? It’s a federal program, not state, but we could do it. Oct 13 is deadline.

With other federal cuts this will hurt. Many people get access at the library but with reduced funds we’ll have reduced services.

USF is an issue too.

 

11:35 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Close with time for subgroups to meet to discuss initial thoughts on the annual report.

 

Here are the committees:

• Affordability, Economic Opportunity, and Workforce Development
  • Marc (subgroup lead), Adam, Bruce, Dave, Gail, Ini, and Phil
• Mapping, Policy, and Funding
  • Melissa (subgroup lead), Briana, Daniel, John, Paul, Steve, and Brian

And tasks for the meeting

• (1) pass along to Anna an outline of information likely needed for the background section
• (2) identify if any follow-up from previous speakers/OBD staff for technical assistance would be helpful
• (3) decide if an additional subgroup meetings before Oct. 13 needed

Attendees weren’t really invited to attend the subcommittee breakout rooms.