Tag Archives: ARRA

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

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The Timberjay has a nice article on the history of broadband in parts of St Louis and Koochiching Counties – from NESC middle mile in 2015 to the Bois Forte-CTC extensions today. It’s proof that, like Rome, FTTH was not built in a day. I’m going to share an abridged version below, but I strongly suggested checking out the original.

Roughly a decade ago, the Northeast Service Cooperative strung a massive web of fiber across northeastern Minnesota. But what you’re seeing today isn’t a duplication of that work. It’s the follow-through. Thanks to a partnership between NESC, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and the broadband company CTC, more than 2,000 homes and businesses around Lake Vermilion’s south shore, Pelican Lake, and Nett Lake are finally getting high-speed broadband service.   …

NESC’s “freeway” network was completed in 2015 after four years of construction and $43.5 million in federal investment. The goal wasn’t to wire every house. It was to build a middle mile, essential infrastructure that future projects could plug into.

Joe Weber, divisional director for the NESC middle mile system, said the project was originally built to serve schools, libraries, governments, and other public entities in places where private providers couldn’t justify the cost of running fiber.    …

The original network spanned eight counties and connected about 320 public facilities. Since then, it has grown to over 1,300 miles of fiber stretching from Cambridge to Grand Portage.
The Bois Forte–CTC project wouldn’t have been feasible without the NESC backbone. Without it, CTC would have faced the enormous expense of building long stretches of new fiber just to link the project area to the larger internet. By tapping into NESC’s existing system, those costs were avoided.  …

A common question that’s cropped up in recent months is whether a network built in 2011 to 2015 can keep up with the skyrocketing internet demands of 2025 and beyond. Both Weber and Buttweiler say that’s not a concern with fiber optics.
“The fiber itself has not changed at all,” Weber said. “The same investment 12 or 13 years ago is still working with new technology.”

EVENT Nov 19: Kandiyohi County Board Update on broadband project

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West Central Tribune reports…

With less than two months left to obligate its remaining American Rescue Plan Act coronavirus relief funds, the Kandiyohi County Board at its meeting on Tuesday will receive an update on broadband projects in the county from the Kandiyohi County Broadband Committee.

The meeting will begin at 9 a.m. Nov. 19 in the board chambers of the Kandiyohi County Health and Human Services building in Willmar.

Out of the approximately $8.3 million in ARPA funding the county received, the county board earmarked 75% of it, or about $6.2 million, to broadband expansion. With the Dec. 31 deadline only a few weeks away, the county broadband committee is looking to return $262,528 to the county, hoping the county will consider future broadband funding matching that amount.

Over the last few years, the broadband committee, in partnership with the county and townships, has funded more than 13 projects in Kandiyohi County, bringing high-speed internet to over 2,612 locations that were underserved or unserved prior.

Celebrating 10 years of Carver County’s CarverLink Fiber Network

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Time flies when you’ve got fiber! I remember the start of CarverLink and I’m thankful that they’d share their highlights. Like all overnight success stories, it takes more than a day. Carver County got ARRA funding, which helped greatly. Any community interested in BEAD funding might take a look at how Carver made it happen…

It is hard to believe but September 2023 is the 10 year “Go Live” anniversary of Carver County’s CarverLink Public Fiber Network.  Oh, how we have grown over the past decade.

The primary purpose for CarverLink is to provide quality and reliable fiber connectivity to support the County’s operations, from sheriff and public works activities to our libraries, parks and license centers.  The secondary purpose for CarverLink is threefold 1) Provide fiber connectivity to our 20+ public and community support partners; 2) Provide a fiber network that is available to private service providers (such as Metronet, Arvig and others) to make available high speed broadband to our businesses and residents; 3) Utilize CarverLink’s fiber resources to make available appropriate connectivity options to other regional public entities via fiber barters, sharing and collaborations that benefit the County and/or region.

All this growth is possible because of the strong “family” relationship we have built with our public and community support partners coupled with the County Board’s understanding of the value and long term commitment to devote resources to broadband.  This commitment and understanding is helping us towards reaching our goal of becoming the first county in the State to make available high speed broadband to all locations within the County that desire it.

And we absolutely need to call out the positive and mutually beneficial public-private relationship we have had and continue to have with our primary fiber partner Metronet (previously Jaguar Communications).  The noncompetitive, non-adversarial, shared vision and true desire for mutual success from both parties is what has made this public private collaboration a success and a relationship to be mirrored for other public private partnerships.

A little history on Carver County’s fiber efforts over the past 15 years

  • Between 2007-2010 Carver County identifies the need for fiber connectivity and dedicates resources to work on multiple design and associated funding options to construct a fiber network, which includes multiple submissions for broadband grant funding from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)
  • Aug 2010 the County is notified it is an awardee of a $6 million grant for a $7.5 million fiber project from ARRA funding for a public private partnership project with Jaguar Communications to construct a 122 mile fiber network
  • Feb 2011 the County lights up its first ever fiber segment, which runs from the Carver County Govt Center in Chaska to the Scott County Govt Center in Shakopee underneath the MN River on Hwy 41
  • August 2011 the County begins construction on the partially ARRA funded CarverLink fiber network constructing a segment between Chaska and City of Carver
  • April 2013 based on an urgent request from Eastern Carver County Schools District 112 due to a major need for bandwidth currently unavailable from any existing private service providers, CarverLink connects to and begins providing internet service to the Chanhassen High School making them our first connected public entity partner
  • Sept 2013 Carver County’s newly renamed CarverLink fiber network officially goes live
  • July 2015 based on unprecedented public entity use, CarverLink hits its peak maximum bandwidth limit 3 years early
  • Sept 2016 CarverLink upgrades to a fully operational 10GB network, alleviating its bandwidth bottleneck
  • Dec 2016, Jaguar Communications, the County’s primary fiber partner, completes its first city fiber overlay in Carver County in the City of NYA, which means it made fiber connectivity available to all addresses located within city limits
  • Oct 2018 CarverLink executes its first fiber collaboration with another non Carver County entity, Hennepin County
  • July 2020 Metronet acquires Jaguar Communications, CarverLink’s primary fiber network partner
  • Sept 2022 CarverLink completes ¾ million dollar project that completely replaces all CarverLink’s legacy network electronics and upgrades the network from a 10GB to a 25GB mesh fabric network.
  • June 2022 the County Board approves the largest expansion in history to the CarverLink network allocating $6.5 million for a $10.5 million project called Connect Up Carver that will build over 350 miles of fiber to over 2200 rural locations, with the fiber construction bid won by Metronet
  • March 2023 Metronet activates service to the first two customers from the CarverLink Connect Up Carver project which are in rural Hamburg, MN
  • Sept 2023 CarverLink completes construction of roughly 200 miles of the 350 miles of Connect Up Carver fiber build
  • Sept 2023 the County Board unanimously approves moving forward with the preliminary 2024 recommended budget which includes $2.5 million that would be utilized to expand the current Connect Up Carver project with a Connect Up Carver 2.0 project. This project and funding would essentially provide the County what it needs to become the first County in the State of MN to make available high speed bandwidth to all locations within the County that want it.

If you are interested in finding out more about the County’s broadband activities, which includes our ongoing $10.5 million, 350 mile Connect Up Carver fiber expansion, and many other programs and initiatives, visit the County’s newly updated CarverLink website at https://carverlink.com/broadband-efforts/.

Fed broadband funding lessons from 2010 help with funding today: Madison & Appleton MN finally getting fiber!

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It feels like the before-times, out on the road talking to folks in rural Minnesota about broadband and more. Traveling with Mary Magnuson, we made a few stops this week, starting with the UMVRDC (Upper Minnesota River Valley Regional Development Commission) to chat with Dawn Hegland and Kevin Ketelson.

UMVRDC supports Big Stone, Chippewa, Lac qui Parle, Swift and Yellow Medicine counties in Western MN. Broadband-wise this list includes some of the best and worst served counties in Minnesota.

Communities need awareness and education

Dawn has been working with the Blandin Foundation since the early days of MIRC (2009); she knows her stuff. Yet, as I say some of their counties are well served and others aren’t. One reason is that some communities are willing to invest, and some have not been. It makes the case for continued need for awareness and education.

Communities like LqP were early into the game, getting ARRA funding back around 2010, when some communities were still asking what broadband was. Post pandemic few communities (or community leaders) need a definition for broadband but the ones who needed it before were at a serious disadvantage during the pandemic shut downs. Swaths of communities were left to try to work, study and stay healthy in communities with inadequate and unreliable Internet access. While just down the road, folks had fiber.

So, while generally people understand the need now (and it remains a top concern in the annual regional survey), people don’t understand the ins and outs of technology. People think “the government will take care of it” or don’t appreciate the difference between fiber and satellite. Decision makers are often consumers online (getting email or watching videos) not producers (uploading work files, homework videos or selling online). They think because they are happy with local connections that others will be as well. But that is often not the case, especially if they are trying to recruit new businesses or young families to the area.

Understanding the landscape helps

Understanding the technology is only half the battle for community leaders. Especially now, you need to understand the funding options because rural broadband is expensive and a lot of State and Federal money will be going to deploy broadband over the next few years. But the applications are onerous and it’s important to find the right fit to serve the whole community, which leads to a long broadband story in the area with a soon-to-be happy ending.

As I mentioned earlier, LqP was an early adopter. They got federal funding for FTTH more than 10 years ago … to most of the county. Unfortunately, Madison, the county seat, was not eligible for the upgrade because the maps showed that they were already “served.” In 2010, that meant they has access of speeds of at least 10 Mbps down and 1 up. So for 10 years rural LqP has had fiber and the county seat has not. They have been actively looking for help to funding to support fiber deployment (because even the county seat in LqP is pretty rural) but had not been successful until now.

Last summer, UMVRDC helped Madison and Appleton apply for CARES funding from the state to build better broadband. (Appleton was in a similar position as Madison, but in Swift County.) The requirements and conditions of the grants were different than other opportunities and it turns out a good fit for both areas. There were awarded the money and Acira is working on Madison now and soon to be moving to Appleton. (Mary and I happened to run into folks from Acira in town too. They were excited to finish the jobs they started 10+ years ago!)

While I’m happy to share the good news of Madison and Appleton, I offer it also as a cautionary tale. Again, unprecedented funding is going into broadband in the next few years but most folks I’ve heard from feel that it won’t cover universal broadband and areas left unserved (or underserved) will have a difficult time catching up once the money is gone. That gets me back to the first point – communities need awareness and education.

Lake County required to pay broadband contractor remaining $2 million

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The Lake County News Chronicle reports…

After five days of testimony and evidence, a jury on Friday ruled in favor of Rohl Networks LP, awarding the company more than $2.075 million in its lawsuit against Lake County regarding work done on the county’s broadband network, Lake Connections.

Rohl, of Jupiter, Fla., was the main contractor during the construction of the broadband network, Lake Connections, from 2012 to 2015. Among other aspects of the lawsuit, Rohl claimed the county failed to pay what it owed for the work it performed and didn’t obtain contracts, permits and agreements in a timely manner necessary to allow the company to perform its work.

The jury on Friday found that under the three contracts — Phase 1, Phase 2A and Phase 2B — the county owed Rohl more than $25 million. Jurors also found that under those same three contracts, the county has so far paid Rohl more than $22.8 million.

The jury did not award Rohl any money for labor or materials supplied outside the scope of the contracts, and did not award the county any liquidated damages due to the delay of the project. The jury of eight did find that Rohl owed Lake County $223,961 for back charges and/or owner-furnished (OFM) materials not installed in the project or returned to Lake County.

The article details the ins and outs of the project as it relates to the contracting work. It seems like this is just another chapter of a project that has seen its ups and downs – and a situation where the decision could have been better or worse for the county and the contractor.

SW Minnesota: the Ups & Downs of ARRA

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I’ve been tracking progress of fiber deployment by the Southwest Minnesota Broadband Group (SMBG). It is an ARRA-funded project that is bringing fiber to homes in the following communities:

  • Bingham Lake,
  • Brewster
  • Heron Lake
  • Jackson
  • Lakefield
  • Okabena
  • Round Lake
  • Wilder

The project has been going very well – and even hooked up their first customer in December. So that part of Southwest Minnesota is going strong.

Unfortunately, according to Watch Dog, not all of Southwestern Minnesota is faring as well..

The recipient of a major federal stimulus grant and loan in southwestern Minnesota appears to be having second thoughts about proceeding with a broadband project spread out over three counties. The $15 million project which planned to expand broadband service in 15 communities may be in danger of going into the financial red zone, apparently due at least in part to the escalating costs of fiber optic cable.

Woodstock Telephone Company was approved by the Rural Utilities Service (RUS) to receive a $10.6 million grant and a $4.5 million loan from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to expand its fiber network by installing Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) to an additional 3,600 premises in Lyon, Pipestone and Rock counties.

While there’s evidently been no formal announcement, the Minneota city administrator told the Freedom Foundation of Minnesota (FFM) that Woodstock Telephone informed her the company no longer intends to build a key facility in their community to house equipment for the network. FFM calls to Woodstock Telephone had not been returned at the time of this post.

I haven’t spoken to Woodstock, but I spoke to others who also indicated that Woodstock seemed as if it was running into some roadblocks.

MIRC Broadband Success: Dawson Boyd High School

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On the MIRC tour last month, we stopped in to see the Dawson Boyd High School. They received funding through the UMRVDC as part of the MIRC project.

Here is a quick summary of their project:

Community Digital Literacy will connect businesses, community members and students to support the creation of a digitally literate community through a Multimedia Collaboration Center, a Student Tech Team, and a hybrid (online and classroom) Teacher/Community Training Academy.

It was great to hear the teachers, principal and tech coordinator talk about how the projects has been going. It was particularly interesting to hear that they recently upgraded their broadband connection from 100 Mbps to a Gig! The National Broadband Plan calls for 1 Gbps of affordable broadband to all community anchor institutions. It’s great to see we’re there in the Dawson Boyd school district – but makes me wonder if that goal is going to suffice too far into the future.

You can also hear from some of the teachers: Continue reading →

Broadband Access Project at Sabathani

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There’s a nice update to the University of Minnesota’s BTOP (ARRA-funded) project in the online Southside Pride newspaper.

You can read the article to learn more about a successful project they hosted this summer, but I thought the following snippet would be most interesting to readers as it gets to the root of the collaborative benefits of the BAP project; something we’ve seen with the MIRC (Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities) initiative as well…

When the University of Minnesota upgraded Sabathani’s third-floor computer lab with new computers last year to launch a Broadband Access Project (BAP) center in the South Minneapolis community, the relationship also gave staff the chance to close the curriculum hole.

According to Cheryl Vanacora, training and curriculum coordinator for the BAP, the University collaborated with HYP to provide instruction to the teens in publishing, online photo-editing and photography basics. They used programs including Adobe Illustrator, Pixelar and Microsoft Publisher.

Sabathani is one of 10 community organizations in Minneapolis and St. Paul participating in the University-sponsored BAP, which brings internet access and computer skills training to urban communities.

Northern Regional Broadband Networks Forum Notes & Presentations

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Today I attended the Northern Regional Broadband Networks Forum in Duluth. The interest in broadband in the business community in Duluth is clearly high – as demonstrated by the standing room only situation in the room.

It was a nice look at all aspects of broadband of the community and a nice eye opener for folks who may not be using broadband, cloud computing or social media as often (or maybe as well) as the speakers. I think it will spur folks to go home and look at how they can implement broadband tools in work, home and community.

Below are the presentations. [Added 10/5/2011 – you can access materials from the event online too. http://www.northlandconnection.com/uploads/BroadbandNetworkForumPacket2.pdf]





(Danna used a great tool called Prezi – fun to see, great for the presentation but tougher to embed in the blog. Please click to view her presentation.)

And here are the questions, which I think are always valuable. (As fun to see what folks ask as to hear the answers.)

Continue reading →

Free Software Training for Stevens County Businesses

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I like to post periodic updates on what’s happening in various communities due to the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) project. It’s great to see that the project has spurred a partnership between Stevens County Economic Improvement Commission, Inc. (SCEIC) and Atomic Training (out of Little Falls, MN). According to the Morris Sun Tribune…

The Stevens County Economic Improvement Commission, Inc. (SCEIC) is offering free one-year subscriptions to Atomic Training.com to businesses in Stevens County. Any business in Stevens County is eligible for a free one-year subscription to a creative and very beneficial on-line software training company (Atomic Training.com) that allows individualized and comprehensive software training for those who have no experience with 149 software programs for PC or Mac based computers or for those who just need a refresher on specific functions of a software program.

It’s the stone soup approach we wrote about last summer. If you can get a project on a successful path, others will join in.

Southwest MN is getting excited for fiber

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Both the Jackson County Pilot (Aug 18, 2011) and the Cottonwood County Citizen (Aug 24, 2011) have highlighted the Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services’ (SMBS) progress in bringing fiber to Southwest Minnesota. The Pilot paints a nice picture of what broadband means to the area…

Your grandpa planted crops with a two-row planter. You Use a 36-row planter.

The same is true of information technology, said Dan Olsen, general manager of Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services, the group charged with bringing lightning-fast fiber-optic communication capabilities to Jackson County.

The potential impact on the local economic development is easy to imagine. The Cottonwood Citizen details the more direct impact of the project on local economy…

Olsen said there are roughly 40 people working full-time on the regional fiber-to-the-home project.

That number includes outside construction people, engineering staff, the sales staff, project management, vendors and others.

Again back to the Jackson Pilot, they recognize that broadband alone won’t make the difference in bringing in jobs and economic opportunity – but adoption programs will help lead to success…

In addition, SMBS officials believe that in partnership with the Blandin Foundation sustainable adoption dollars and local economic development groups, this network will make the region much more saleable for business retention and attraction efforts.

This network will not only create jobs, but also build provide a foundation for opportunities for community anchor institutions and businesses to build and implement applications that will increase the quality of life as well as improve health, education and public safety services across the region.

Senators Klobuchar & Franken attend Carver County Groundbreaking

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One of the best thing about being back in Minnesota is that I’m able to attend some of the fun groundbreaking events to celebrate new broadband deployment (much of it sponsored by ARRA funding). Yesterday I was able to attend the groundbreaking in Cologne, Minnesota. They were celebrating the beginning of their new fiber optic ring, which will be over 122 miles long and will connect 86 entities at 56 sites throughout Carver County, including city, county and township governments, schools, fire departments, public safety towers and law enforcement agencies.

Both Senators Franken and Klobuchar attended. I caught some video of the event…

Jackson – when it rains it pours broadband

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Thanks to John Shepard for sending me a recent article from the Jackson Pilot. It drives me crazy – but Jackson Pilot does a really good job of posting teaser articles online persuading folks to go buy a paper for the whole scoop. (If I ran the paper, I might do it that way too.) The scoop in question today is community plans for fiber versus the city cable system. From a broadband blogger perspective this sounds like a nice problem to have – “too many” broadband options.

Here’s the main gist from the part of the article that is available online…

Last Tuesday, council members shelved a recommendation from the utilities commission to direct city cable TV department manager Curt Egeland to provide cost figures to the commission for upgrading Jackson’s cable TV system for the purpose of making it all digital and independent of the rural electric association’s signal. The commission had earlier tabled such action due to the city’s involvement in Southwest Minnesota Broadband Service’s fiber-to-the-premise project, which promises to compete with the city’s cable TV system and — eventually — replace it.

But at the commission’s July 25 meeting, member Kevin Speiker said that might not be such a good idea.

It seems as if Spieker is concerned about quality of service and thinks that the costs of upgrading the cable system have probably come down since they last investigated. City council member Ken Temple spoke out indicating that time would be better spent focused on fiber rather than cable. The topic has been shelved for now as a meeting has been scheduled between commission members and folks at Southwest Minnesota Broadband Group (SMBG).

I spoke with the folks at SMBS – they indicated that the folks they have contacted seem very enthusiastic about fiber – wondering what it might take to be first on the list for installation. ..

Members of the SMBS management group are meeting with the Jackson PUC in the near future to answer any questions they might have. SMBS will also be opening a sales/construction office in Jackson in the near future as construction in Jackson will be begin soon. SMBS has attended Jackson community events and has received positive feedback from the citizens of Jackson mostly asking when they can have the service and excited to finally have a choice for broadband service besides Qwest/CenturyLink and the limited wireless choices available today.

“While a new digital video headend might bring better video service to Jackson (which will be comparable to the services that SMBS is providing), the real issue is that there are not enough broadband options within Jackson”, stated Project Consultant John Schultz. SMBS will offer not only a better video service that is available today but also finally open the broadband market in Jackson.

Carver County Groundbreaking Aug 16

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Tis the season for groundbreakings – and a happy indication of ARRA-funded fiber deployment projects deploying successfully. The Chaska Herald reports on Carver County’s upcoming groundbreaking…

Both of Minnesota’s U.S. senators plan to attend the Aug. 16 kick-off ceremony for Carver County’s new fiber network.

The optic ring, over 122 miles long, will connect 86 entities at 56 sites throughout Carver County, including city, county and township governments, schools, fire departments, public safety towers and law enforcement agencies.

U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken are among the planned speakers at the 2:30 p.m. Carver County Open Fiber Initiative event, held at the Carver County Public Works building, 11360 Highway 212 in Cologne.

Fiber optic construction equipment will be displayed, and workers will give demonstrations on how fiber optic cable is spliced together in the field.

Focus on Transportion, Energy, Broadband for NE Minnesota

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Over the weekend, Senator Klobuchar headed up north to celebrate the ARRA-funded broadband project being led by Arrowhead Electric Cooperative. Fox 21 News reports…

It’s a region of Minnesota lacking something many take for granted; high speed internet. But now, a massive project is under way to finally help Cook County get connected.”I always argue that we should be focused on three things: transportation, energy and broadband,” declared Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar.

…

Currently much of Cook County uses dial–up, satellite, or DSL internet connections- all which are unreliable. “There’s no way we’re gonna compete on the national or international stage if we don’t have internet,” said Sen. Klobuchar.

It will also help bring jobs to region. Jobs, that without internet, may have gone elsewhere. “We can agree that these jobs should be in Lutsen. They should be in Grand Marais. They should be in Schroeder. They shouldn’t be in Mumbai, India or Shanghai, China,” said Sen. Klobuchar.

The Arrowhead Electric Coop recently posted some project updates on their web site, including a video, a construction status map and answers to frequently asked questions…

Materials and Equipment for the construction of our fiber optic network have started arriving in Lutsen. Construction has begun along the Caribou Trail. Underground crews are working in the Tait, Clara, Christine and Cariobu Lake areas. Once completed the underground work will move towards Deer Yard Lake and the Jonvick Creek subdivisions. Crews building between the road and the home on private properties will begin work in 1-2 weeks. Once completed with the Caribou Trail, construction crews will begin working westerly to the Lake & Cook County line.