ECE’s diving into the high-speed internet pool began in late 2021 when the board of directors voted to move forward with developing a plan for a full-fiber-to-the-home project.
However, things kicked into high gear in recent months as the replacement of more than 1,000 electrical poles officially began, making the poles also capable of carrying the physical fiber network.
Since 2021, ECE has been busy pursuing state and federal grant money offered exclusively to bring broadband internet to under-served areas. To date, ECE has been awarded $19 million in grants, with another potential $24 million pending approval.
“It’s not just that broadband allows for Netflix, although that’s great — entertainment is important — but it also allows for precision agriculture, for tele-medicine, for young people and adults to engage in learning, or for businesses to engage in commerce, Varilek said. “That’s also why it is worth the investment of state and federal funds.”
ECE has also contributed $46 million from other funding sources to the project. Of those other funding sources, $515,000 came from counties, townships or cities.
“We’re not asking for millions of dollars (from local governments),” said ECE Vice President Ty Houglum. “We’ve asked for a metric, and that metric is not big. The maximum we’ve asked from a county is $200,000, and that is if we covered 100% of their county. For townships, it was $10,000.”
With that money, ECE has run 850 miles of fiber so far. Next year, another 1,200 miles will be put in place. In total, Houglum said, roughly 6,000 miles of fiber constructed will have been run.
This first phase of service has been constructed around much of Isanti County north into Kanabec County. The Pine City area is also the most recent area to be ready to start offering service. Future areas of service, pending grant approvals, include more of Pine County and far eastern Wisconsin.
Paul Bunyan Communications will be expanding its all-fiber optic network the GigaZone®, to over 1,500 locations this year in Itasca, St. Louis, and Aitkin County.
Itasca County expansion will include over 180 locations in the city of Taconite, over 500 locations in the city of Keewatin, and 45 locations in an area of the Greenway Township east of the city of Calumet.
St. Louis County expansion will include over 530 locations in the city of Buhl and over 240 locations in the Forbes area southwest of Eveleth.
Aitkin County expansion will include over 70 locations in areas of Aitkin Township and an unorganized township northwest of the city of Aitkin
“We are committed to our effort to bring gigabit broadband Internet to those currently without reliable Internet access in our region. When we started expanding in 1999, high-speed Internet service was just beginning. Today, Internet access is no longer a luxury, it is a vital component of everyday life and our cooperative continues to bring this essential access to more homes and businesses right here in northern Minnesota every year” said Gary Johnson, Paul Bunyan Communications CEO/General Manager.
Anyone interested in getting connected to the all-fiber optic broadband network should sign up for service now. That can be done online, over the phone, or in person at our Grand Rapids Customer Service & Technology Center or Cooperative Headquarters in Bemidji. To check to see if a specific location is within an expansion area and learn more about the expansion construction process, visit http://www.gigazone.com. Paul Bunyan Communications will be also mailing more information to those within the 2024 plans as construction is about to begin in their area. Construction will take place over the summer with services expected to be available by winter.
“This will be a huge service improvement for everyone in the project areas. It is very challenging for those who don’t have true high-speed internet available at their home or business. As more and more students and employees work from home, many people are learning how critical upload speed is for their job or school work. Unlike many other providers, our speeds are symmetric, the same speeds are available for upload and download. This will be a game changer for these areas.” added Steve Howard, Paul Bunyan Communications Information Technology and Development Manager.
The cooperative’s services will become available once the network is operational including GigaZone® Internet with its unprecedented broadband speeds of up to 10 Gig and low cost unlimited local and long distance GigaZone® voice telephone service. There is no membership fee to join Paul Bunyan Communications, membership is included by subscribing to either local phone service or GigaZone® Internet service.
At a time when broadband connectivity has never been more in demand or more critical to our daily lives, Gigapower is expanding its state-of-the-art fiber network to Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Eagan, Savage, Apple Valley, Burnsville, Farmington, Lakeville, Rosemount and Shakopee.
Gigapower’s commercial wholesale, open access platform enables internet service providers and other businesses to access its multi-gig fiber network in select metro areas throughout the country.
This is made possible through the Gigapower joint venture between AT&T and BlackRock, through a fund managed by its Diversified Infrastructure business.
Big congratulations to East Central Energy for making better broadband happen in Pine and Isanti Counties. It was great to be there for their fiber ribbon cutting ceremony today. I’ve been following ECE and their venture into extending services to broadband to serve their members. It is a gift to that area to have a broadband provider that is engaged and interested in investing in technology. Both counties have hovered near the bottom-ranking counties for broadband for years, despite concerted community effort. This will be a game changer.
As they note in the video below, this isn’t a solo venture. They have received local, state and federal funding to make this happen and they plan to continue to grow.
Hometown Source reports from Comcast a slight update from the news last fall; it looks like Rogers has been added to the cities getting better broadband…
Comcast announced expansions of its broadband network to seven cities including Corcoran and portions of Rogers by the end of 2024, as a result of funding support from the state of Minnesota’s Border-to-Border Broadband program.
“Access to reliable, high-speed broadband is a powerful driver of economic growth and development in our community,” Corcoran Mayor Tom McKee said. “Internet access is at the center of our modern lives and the quality of those lives will be greatly enhanced thanks to the partnership with Comcast, Hennepin County and the Minnesota Office of Broadband. Together we will be bringing broadband to nearly 500 unserved homes and businesses in Corcoran.”
Broadband areas will see five to 10 times faster upload speeds and smoother connections with the Xfinity Network. The 2024 planned expansion is part of the company’s nationwide rollout of multi-gig Internet speeds and adds to Comcast’s ongoing $473 million investment across Minnesota over the last three years.
Hiawatha Broadband Communications announces that construction of its 100% fiber-optic network is officially complete in Empire, MN, bringing high-speed Internet to the town’s 3,100 residents.
Empire residents can now experience symmetrical, or equal, upload and download Internet speeds up to 5 Gigabits, allowing residents to upload online, just as fast as they can download, creating a seamless online experience every day.
“We are thrilled to have completed construction of the HBC fiber-optic network in Empire,” said General Manager Dan Pecarina, “and are excited to see how our network will impact residents. Having access to a high-speed network will not only improve quality of life but will also lead to future growth and development within the city.”
Currently, HBC serves over 30 communities in southeast Minnesota with active fiber network construction projects in the cities of Hastings, MN, Farmington, MN, and Winona, MN.
Residents and businesses that are interested in HBC services should visit hbci.com/order or call (888) 474-9995 to confirm service availability for their location and to sign up for their service installation. Residents can also visit HBC’s local office in Farmington located at 923 8th Street, Suite 949.
T-Mobile is making steady progress with its initiative to offer fiber internet service. It’s now selling fiber service in 13 markets, according to the “availability” tab on its T-Fiber website.
Fierce Telecom reached out to T-Mobile, and the company named the fiber providers it’s working with in each market.
Tillman FiberCo — In Pinellas County and Polk County, Florida;
Intrepid Fiber Networks — In Pueblo and Northglenn, Colorado; and in Bloomington, St. Cloud/Sauk Rapids, and Eden Prairie, Minnesota;
SiFi Networks — In Kenosha, Wisconsin; Rockford, Illinois; Farmington Area, Michigan; and in Oceanside and Palmdale, California;
Sometimes the Minnesota County Broadband Profiles spur a conversation; such is the case with Steve Kraus in Waseca County. Steve began working on better broadband in the county as an American Connection Corps (ACC) Fellow, which is project of Lead for America, a national program of AmeriCorps. He is one piece of a smart strategy in Waseca for better broadband and more. So are the Waseca County Commissioners; I was delighted to spend some time with all of them talking about their broadband strategy via Zoom.
I wanted to share the video, which is full of great stories and frontline examples, such as having to finish your online work before 6am on a satellite connection before your neighbors wake up and go online too and a lot of praise for the Office of Broadband Development.
As a reminder, Waseca ranks 64 out of 87 with a red code. Part of the cause for the code is that Waseca has stalled around 75 percent access to broadband at speeds of 100 Mbps down and 20 up since 2018. Also, there is a discrepancy between broadband coverage depending on whether you include fixed wireless broadband or only wireline broadband. Minnesota doesn’t currently take fixed wireless into consideration when defining areas eligible for grants; the federal government does include access to fixed wireless as broadband. That could make a big difference to who is eligible for BEAD funding.
Waseca worked with local provider, Bevcomm, on a low density border-to-border grant request to OBD in the latest (and still current) funding round (Round 9). That is both the culmination and start of a path to success. We talked about their recipe for success, starting with key ingredients:
Informed Public Sector Waseca County has engaged, forward-thinking County Commissioners (Brian Harguth, Doug Christopherson, DeAnne Malterer and Brad Krause). As a former teacher, De was acutely aware of the needs of students, especially during the pandemic. (Dee is also on the Telecommunications and Technology Steering Committee through the National Association of Counties.) The other Commissioners (including Blair Nelson, who has recently passed) understand how farming families rely on broadband for precision agriculture, for second-income opportunities, access to education and telehealth.
Michael Johnson, the county administrator, has experience working for local broadband provider. He is an account, not an engineer, but his experience means he understands nuances that someone else might not.
Dedicated Staff The county was fortunate to have Steve Kraus step in as an ACC Fellow. Having a full time, dedicated staff person to drive the priority and provide support to the effort got things done. For example, using maps provided by the Office of Broadband Development, Steve was able to find broadband providers who served some portion of the county and was able to contact each one to gauge interest and bandwidth for expanding access. That is how they found Bevcomm
Local Champions Advanced Waseca County is a group that meets quarterly to make Waseca County better. The stakeholders include a wide range of community members from education, local businesses, public safety, county commissioners, librarians, ACC fellow and more. They have had success rebuilding an historic baseball stadium and building a waterpark. As a group, they have decided that current priorities include:
Broadband
Preparing young people for modern jobs
Supporting downtown redevelopment
Access to funding Waseca County does not have a large population. And existing infrastructure is minimal. Access to state and federal funds help make FTTP financially feasible. Th County has just over $1 million in ARPA and CARES funding to dedicate to broadband. Six of the townships in Waseca County are able to invest funds at this point. They have an application in for State funds and are looking closely at federal (BEAD) funding.
Those are the ingredients that could help Waseca success. The next step is building a plan. For Waseca, it started with Steve digging into a potential provider partner as described above. He spoke to many providers, but it was Bill Eckles at Bevcomm who suggested a lunch and immediately began a partnership. Steve gives a nod to support from the Office of Broadband Development (OBD) and Barbara Droher Kline of Le Sueur County. BEVCOMM was interested in working with Waseca on grant proposals MN state funding. The were unsuccessful in the 8th round of funding on a proposal that spanned two counties; OBD suggested that Waseca focus on their county alone. So that is what they have done for the current (9th) round of funding. The county committed funds to the project too. They are waiting to hear back on whether they receive funding.
But regardless of the success of this round, the county has found the final ingredient that they needed to move forward, an engaged provider partner.
Things are going well but there are some challenges. For example, Waseca was held back with situation with LTD Broadband nearly getting federal funding through the RDOF program. LTD was awarded an exclusive opportunity to apply for funds in parts of Minnesota. Between the opportunity and the results (they didn’t get the funds), Waseca and other communities were in a limbo where they could not receive other state or federal funds. They lost some ground.
There is some concern about veracity of broadband maps. For example, Steve called the broadband providers listed in the area on the MN Broadband map but found out that many were not interested in developing a partnership to improve broadband. But there is also a lot of faith in the team that they have assembled; I would include the Office of Broadband Development, Bevcomm, County Commission, County Administrator and Steve Kraus on that team.
Comcast has announced it’s expanding its internet service to seven more Minnesota cities.
The communications giant says its “fiber-rich network” will by the end of 2024 expand to the west of the Twin Cities, namely Corcoran, Cologne, Nowthen and parts of Grant, Hugo, Rogers, and Stillwater Township.
It will provide residents of those areas another option for their internet service, with Comcast saying the expansion is being part funded by the State of Minnesota’s Border-to-Border Broadband program, which pays up to 50% of development costs for qualifying projects.
The company says the new expansion will service near 14,000 additional homes.
Extending broadband to rural corners of the U.S. presents a number of challenges, including rugged terrain, difficult economics, and geographic hurdles, just to name a few. Despite these difficulties, America’s broadband providers have been extending their networks to the farthest corners of the country. Many ISPs have been hard at work for years, investing their own money and resources to connect rural communities. Mediacom’s recent network expansion in Minnesota is just one example of these efforts.
In Lakewood Township, Minnesota, a town of about 2,000 people near the shores of Lake Superior, residents and the local government came together with a proposal to Mediacom to extend its nearby network to the sparsely populated corner of Saint Louis County. The ISP was eager to work with such an engaged community and, after assessing the situation, decided to go ahead with extending its network to offer fiber to the home using its own private capital, foregoing an offer from the county to chip in $400k.
In a weekly catch-up of comments on his columns, Star Tribune’s Evan Ramstad noted reactions to his recent column on rural broadband…
In the online comments section of my Oct. 22 column about rural broadband, the suggestion appeared again and again that people in parts of Minnesota without access to broadband could subscribe to the Starlink satellite service, which is offered by Elon Musk’s SpaceX venture.
That indeed is an option, though, as several commenters noted, not as reliable as optical fiber. Starlink dishes need what’s known as “line of sight” access to a satellite. Trees and hills can get in the way.
Paul Bunyan Communications is currently extending one of the fastest rural all-fiber optic networks in the United States, the GigaZone™ to approximately 66 unserved households in an area around Ash Lake in rural northwestern St. Louis County. The locations will soon have access to fiber optic fast broadband with speeds up to 10 Gbps, along with voice telephone services.
Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation supported the project with a $101,000 Broadband Infrastructure grant to Paul Bunyan Communications. St. Louis County also provided funding. Total project investment is estimated at $270,000.
The project area is about 15 miles north of Orr and 25 miles south of Ray near U.S. Highway 53. Because the entire project area was considered unserved, it likely would have never received basic broadband service without external assistance. The Ash Lake project has approximately four miles of mainline fiber optic cable and is scheduled to be completed in December.
The 66 locations that will receive new service only had access to Internet speeds below 10 Mbps, if any. St. Louis County is Minnesota’s largest county at over 6,200 square miles in size and has the highest number of unserved households in the state.
Wireless provider T-Mobile has brought its land-based fiber Internet service to new markets in Florida and Minnesota, according to a report.
Last Friday, industry publication Fierce Telecom received information from Wave7 Research principal analyst Jeff Moore that T-Mobile quietly debuted fiber-based service in Pinellas County, Florida and the St. Cloud metropolitan area in Minnesota.
Moore described the rollout as a “modest effort” that was intended to help T-Mobile better understand fiber broadband, “not a brad effort to sell broadband.”
“[T-Mobile CEO] Mike Sievert recently described this effort as ‘capital-light,’ and I think that’s the correct context,” Moore said.
After a delay in the state’s required historical review process, construction bids will soon be sought for the $19.8 million Bois Forte Band high-speed broadband project serving the south shore of Lake Vermilion and areas around Orr.
Bois Forte Information Technology Director Randy Long said on Tuesday that the detailed engineering for the project, which is being done in partnership with CTC Telecom, is “pretty much wrapped up.”
The band had originally hoped to break ground on the project this year, but a mandated review of plans by the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) has taken far longer than expected.
…
Long noted last fall that the final scope of the deployment could be curtailed somewhat depending on the availability and cost of fiber optic cable and equipment, as well as unanticipated construction costs, which could be likely when dealing with Vermilion’s rocky south shore. The original plan was to start just west of Tower, and stretch fiber optic broadband all the way to the west end of Lake Vermilion, wrapping around the whole of Head of the Lakes Bay. The southern border for broadband deployment would be Hwy. 115 up to about Wakely Rd, where it would then taper to the northwest and Head of the Lakes Bay. The Orr portion of the development would include residential and resort areas along the northwest shore of Pelican Lake and west along Nett Lake Rd. to serve the major areas of residential and commercial properties along the south shore.
The new system will connect with another Band project serving the Vermilion and Nett Lake sectors and Indian Point on Pelican Lake. Sign-ups for those systems have been taking place, and Long said the systems will be coming online soon.
“We have our first customers being lit up on Oct. 30 – that’s for the Nett Lake, Palmquist, and Indian Point areas,” Long said. “And then Nov. 9 we’re doing sign ups for the Vermilion sector and will probably turn them on in mid-November.”
Long said the partnership with CTC has worked well.
The Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB) email newsletter, The Ranger, reports…
Paul Bunyan Communications (PBC) is currently extending one of the fastest rural all-fiber optic networks in the United States, the GigaZone™ to approximately 66 unserved households in an area around Ash Lake in rural northwestern St. Louis County (SLC). The locations will soon have access to fiber optic fast broadband with speeds up to 10 Gbps, along with voice telephone services. Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation supported the project with a $101,000 Broadband Infrastructure grant to PBC. SLC also provided funding. Total project investment is estimated at $270,000.
The project area is about 15 miles north of Orr and 25 miles south of Ray near US Highway 53. Because the entire project area was considered unserved, it likely would have never received basic broadband service without external assistance. The Ash Lake project has approximately four miles of mainline fiber optic cable and is scheduled to be completed in December.
The 66 locations that will receive new service only had access to internet speeds below 10 Mbps, if any. SLC is Minnesota’s largest county at over 6,200 square miles in size and has the highest number of unserved households in the state.
“This project will give the people and homes access to the fastest internet speeds available, both upload and download speeds up to 10 Gig,” said Steve Howard, Paul Bunyan Communications’ IT & Development Manager. “It will be a huge service improvement for everyone in the project area. In addition to the 66 locations passed, Paul Bunyan Communications was able to leverage the fiber installed to provide services to mobile phone towers. The expanded mobile phone coverage will greatly improve communications throughout the area.”
The GigaZone™ not only provides the capacity to handle current communication technologies quickly and efficiently, but it will also meet the increasing demands of the next generation of broadband innovations. For example, initially the network provided a maximum speed of 1 Gigabit per second, but the technology advanced by 2021 so that the cooperative can now offer speeds up to 10 Gigabits per second.
Paul Bunyan Communications started as a telephone cooperative in 1952 and has grown into the largest broadband cooperative in Minnesota serving over 6,000 square miles throughout most of Beltrami County and portions of Cass, Hubbard, Itasca, Koochiching, and St. Louis Counties. In addition to fiber optic fast Internet speeds up to 10 Gig powered by the GigaZone™, the cooperative offers television services, digital voice services, Residential and Business IT services, and is also the home of northern Minnesota’s certified Apple Service Centers in Bemidji and Grand Rapids.
Email Whitney Ridlon or call her at 218-735-3004 for Broadband Infrastructure grant information.
