MN Broadband Task Force Meeting Oct 2026: on location at Midco

The MN Broadband Task Force met in Isanti heard from Midco about their business and their experience working with the Office of Broadband Development (OBD). OBD gave an update and the Task Force member met in small groups to discussion two aspects of the annual report: Affordability Economic Opportunity, and Workforce Development and Mapping, Policy, and Funding. Not enough people showed up for the mapping discussion (although folks may have shown up after the initial 5 minutes) so I attended the affordability discussion, which was pretty interesting, especially when talking about speed goals. There’s always a balance between was consumers need and what providers are offering, especially with the BEAD shift from fiber to satellite.

Meeting Agenda

10:00 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. Welcome from Teddy Bekele, Chair, Minnesota Governor’s Task Force on Broadband, roll call, approval of minutes from September Task Force meeting, and presentation and introduction from Melissa Wolf and Midco.

Questions:

Tell us about line extension.
It allows us to reach individuals who are farther away from our network. They are longer drops, more rural properties. We stay in contact with folks who may apply and we evaluate where the houses in need are. They are shorter contracts – usually within 6-12 months we start to build.

Do you see things in other states that are working better?
OBD is the gold standard. We talk more about what MN is doing well.

What’s Midco Mobile?
It’s our cell phone offering.

10:45 a.m. – 11 a.m. Continue Task Force discussion on E-Rate and update from Task Force member work since September meeting.

Where does the TF stand with E-rate?

Erate goes to schools and libraries. USF goes to other places too, such as hospitals and low-income households.
Erate is under review and is open for comments. Does the TF want to comment? Two letters have been written in support of Erate. One is a direct FCC comment. The other is a letter to the Congressional delegation. Deadline is Oct 13.
Does everybody support the effort? No dissenters.
Folks can read the letters after the meeting and chime in.

11 a.m. – 11:15 a.m. Office of Broadband Development (OBD) overview and updates from Bree Maki (Executive Director, OBD).

Bree is in DC and they are talking about USF at the conference.
Big thanks for Midco for hosting and sharing.
Border to Border – team has been closing 10 more projects (round 9 and 10).
89 active projects still in the field; 24 are near closing.
Line Extension 4 & 5 need to be built by the end of the year.
Plan to do another line extension round – but not until next year
Trying to navigate BEAD
Digital Equity Act – lots of unknowns. Competitive grant is in the courts, looking for guidance by the end of the year. Hoping the state grants will also get a review.
BEAD – asking grantees to do what they can.
Benefit of the Bargain 2 – we were aggressive in trying to add 21000 locations to the BEAD eligible map
Supposed to be done with contracting by October but we weren’t able to get the info we needed – our new date is Nov 7.
Also looking for tribal consent, especially as some providers have left the program.

Questions

Are there any projects with only minimal scope changes?
Most have something but there are a few. We are losing providers, especially fiber providers due to rising costs. This is turning into an anti-fiber project due to costs.

We have gone from 160,000 unserved locations to 60,000 – due to private investment.

BEAD does not work well in a state that state broadband speed goals that surpass federal definitions.

Some projects are getting close to starting. Some folks are waiting on signing contracts until they know what’s happening on a layer higher than one project alone.

11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. Subgroup work time, have leads share out (1—2 minutes) on work at and since September meeting, breakout into subgroups for work time. Subgroups will aim to identify and finalize information needed for the background section to support eventual recommendations.

The video gets wonky at this point. My plan was to record one group and take notes for the other, but only one person showed up for the Affordability Economic Opportunity, and Workforce Development group. So I shifted to recording Affordability Economic Opportunity, and Workforce Development. Also I took screenshots of the document as changes were being made, which may be moderately helpful.

Do we need to prepare MN Government that we need to return to Border to Border in light of BEAD not really coming to fruition? YES

Do we need to discuss speed goals? Is it still 100/20 – then yes.
What are industry standards? NO one has really addressed it. With wireless and satellite becoming the de facto BEAD answer, conversations have shifted.
We should focus on symmetrical, that would push fiber. Government funds should not go to inadequate speeds with limited growth.
If BEAD stayed at gig access, this would be an easier discussion but since the feds are no longer there, we won’t likely get traction for the federal discussion.