Turning the broadband map from green to gold

Unfortunately, one of the keys to getting a handle on the debate over fast, affordable broadband access to the Internet in Minnesota is this map. It shows where people get high-speed Internet access via cable or DSL or wireless or fiber optic cable.

It looks like an indecipherable mess at first -- green, blue, violet, pink, gray and gold scattered around Minnesota in a pattern that seems not to match any of the typical maps of population, age, income or even rainfall that you get used to when you're in the state trend-spotting business.

And no matter how long I stare at it, some of it remains at least less than useful. For example, the Twin Cities is mostly pink for cable service, not violet for DSL service, even though both are available throughout the metro area. (After several calls this afternoon to Connected Nation, which creates the map, I now know why. A service layer's size determines where it goes in the heirarchy. Pink goes on top of violet because cable is a smaller service area.) But clearly, those massive areas of blue and green for wireless service don't speak well of the availability of fast service in big parts of rural Minnesota.

On Monday in western Minnesota, the map came into focus a little more, offering a microcosm of how the broadband landscape changes. See that green doughnut hole surrounded by gold near the South Dakota border?

Federated Telephone Cooperative, a small communications company that has for decades provided phone service and more recently fiber optic Internet access to residents and businesses in a handful of communities, held a media event to launch a new project. It is receiving $1.3 million in federal stimulus money -- half grant, half loan -- to run high-speed fiber optics to the rural area around Appleton. That's the doughtnut hole.

The project will involve 108 miles of fiber to 160 residences, businesses and institutions. These are places now served by satellite, dial-up and wireless, which are slow, expensive, have delays or all three.

Federated hopes to finish the work by the end of 2011, said general manager Kevin Beyer. The co-op is planning to charge $30 a month for a basic package that provides 5 megabits per second (upload and download) and offer up to 100 megabits for those willing to pay more.

When they finish, the result on Minnesota's high-speed Internet map will be a little less green and a little more gold.

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