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Ground Level Blog
Dave Peters

Map shows co-ops lead charge on rural broadband

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I'm a map geek, so when Minnesota's new broadband task force filed its first official report on Thursday, this jumped out at me:

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Pink is good. Those are the areas that already meet the state's 2015 goal for adequate high-speed Internet access for all households.

No surprise that the Twin Cities, with its population density and multiple providers, meets the goal. But it's intriguing to see the two large outstate areas in the upper Minnesota River valley and up north.

A big reason is the optic fiber work done in recent years by small rural cooperatives like Farmers Mutual in Madison, Federated Telephone in Morris and Paul Bunyan in Bemidji. Folks in those co-ops will tell you it makes a difference when the goal is customer-owner service instead of shareholder profit.

The map is an October 2011 snapshot and is a work in progress so there may be some other spots doing well. But it's one thing to say 57 percent of Minnesota households meet the state goal; it's another to see it on a map.

The report by the Dayton administration's new task force had to meet a year-end deadline so there isn't much totally new data in it, but it's a good compilation and, more important, a good summary of what the main points of discussion are in this realm.

In education, are schools keeping up and do students have access at home? Are rural hospitals and clinics moving to electronic health records? Can people find out what they need from local government? The report even touches on Internet use in the arts and tourism. And it notes that in the future, the task force will be focusing on both availability of broadband and how well Minnesotans are using it when it's available.

The 53-page report also includes a good rundown on the $200 million plus in federal stimulus money coming to the state.

Look for a meatier report in a month. That's the deadline for the task force, which is chaired by former Minnesota House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, to put out a set of options for state strategies and policies on how to proceed.