First Minnesota Broadband Task Force Meeting

I am very excited to be selected to the second iteration of Minnesota Broadband Task Force under the direction of the Department of Commerce.  I am fortunate to be working with 14 other very smart and dedicated persons in the field over the next two years.

We held our first meeting on August 26th.  Our charter is much more narrow than the initial taskforce.  We are really responsible for tracking and reporting on the following issues/goals:

1. Minnesota will be in the top five states nationally for broadband speed
2. Minnesota will be in the top five states nationally for broadband access
3. Minnesota will be in the top fifteen nations for broadband penetration and adoption.

The taskforce will be working with Connected Minnesota on Data Collection to contribute to the Commissioner’s annual report.

The topic that garnered the most interest and discussion was another portion of our mandate “The taskforce shall, by January 1 of each year issue a status report to the commissioner of commerce on the attainment of the Minnesota broadband goals and recommendations for achieving these goals”  There was a lot of discussion on how we gather information on providing recommendations from successful projects across the state and nationally to increase broadband penetration.  I hope this taskforce becomes the repository for success stories in broadband partnerships, broadband initiatives and a place where all Minnesotan’s can be heard regarding broadband issues.

I look forward to keeping you all updated as we move forward.  Feel free to share any suggestions with me as how you can see the taskforce working for the citizens of Minnesota.

Lac qui Parle Computer Commuter

Spent a wonderful late summer afternoon in Dawson, MN earlier last week at the ribbon-cutting of the Lac qui Parle Computer Commuter.  For those of you not familiar with the project the County EDA has been working with the TDF foundation and Congressmen Colin Peterson’s office to bring a mobile computer lab to the county.
It is a great idea that will allow several communities access to the lab for general computer usage, training and research.  In addition to having a lab there is a also a wireless component that persons with a laptop but without access can utilize it also.

These are the types of initiatives that we are happy to be associated with; as you may know U-reka has been working with Lac qui Parle County and Farmer’s Mutual Telephone on their successful BIP broadband stimulus application and the computer commuter is just one initiative that will continue to create demand for the infrastructure that will be placed.    I wanted to run down the success’s the County has had and how they have leveraged funds to get to the point of a $9.6 million award.

Community Involvement-the participation of businesses and citizens in meetings regarding broadband have been impressive.  They truly understand that this infrastructure can turn the county and maintain and hopefully grow the population of the County.

A Champion-Pam Lehmann, the Director of the LqP EDA has been a strong champion in communicating the need for next-generation broadband and finding the resources to make each of her projects a success.

Benefactor-the County has been fortunate to have the Blandin Foundation who has provided funds and resources like Bill Coleman to further the development of broadband strategies for the county.  The funds that Blandin has provided have been leveraged not only for the Computer Commuter but also their matching funds laid the groundwork for a successful BIP application.

Strong Partners-Farmer’s Mutual Telephone has been an important partner in the infrastructure project but also in other broadband initiatives.  Also the other carriers in the area such as Frontier and Mediacom have provided support.

I also saw Pam at the Broadband Summit last week and she should expect to plan on doing more public speaking since the model in the County is one many can replicate.

Senator Klobuchar Roundtable

I enjoyed the round-table at the Carlson School of Management last week.  I am not going regurgitate the session, that can be found on many other sites down there that do an excellent job.  What I do want to concentrate on is how the rest of the population looks at this topic after Chairman Genachowski’s comment that this is important to those in the room but not as important to the general population.  We all get caught in our own silo’s as an industry and need to realize its the impression of the general population that will make issues rise to the forefront (isn’t this part of the mission of those who support municipal broadband that it’s grassroots and groundup).  One vendor friend of mine tweeted-”We did not learn anything new”-and that is the point; its not us who have to learn but we have to instead get our message out the general population.

Those of you that were at the round-table, when was there the most applause?  When net neutrality was brought up and who clapped?  Not those of us from the industry but those individuals we never see at typical broadband events, those who have a true passion for it beyond the dollar and cents.  We need more persons like that at our events and ones that have the passion to clap in approval.

I did a small experiment posting the Star Tribune editorial regarding the summit on my Facebook page to see what the commentary would be.  I utilize Facebook only for my personal life and try not to blend it with my professional life (there has to be some separation of church and state) to see what type of commentary I would get back from those not involved in the day-to-day broadband world.  One of my friends mentioned how broadband and technology enabled India to leapfrog in the call-center business (guess I never have gone back and done the research to determine that) while the other spectrum it became a political discussion aimed at Stimulus=Obama=Communism, the usual divisive political junk that does not get us anywhere.  One friend did bring up a good point from a general public perspective-why would it make sense to spend dollars to get to places like the Gunflint Trail where the financials do not make sense and maybe many persons do not want to access the rest of the world?  These are the persons in the general public who need to be educated as to the benefits of broadband.

So here is my challenge to all of you-step out of our industry box and get someone not involved in broadband to understand the issues and necessity for ubiquitous coverage.  Once the general public starts screaming for these services then we will have a platform to make true change.

Blandin Blog with U-reka

I was interviewed by Ann Treacy of Blandin last week.  It is below and discusses the multiple applications we have had awarded during the stimulus process.

Winning strategy for ARRA networks

Posted: 13 Aug 2010 01:28 PM PDT

On Wednesday, I met up with John Schultz of U-reka Broadband to talk about the ARRA awards and his model for success. John is involved with several projcts that have been funded. So far, his projects are bringing $35 million to our area. It’s an impressive record.

John is inovled with the following:

• Southwest Minnesota Broadband Group (City of Widom expansion)
• Leech Lake Reservation Business Committee
• Farmers Mutual Telephone Company (Lac qui Parle County)
• Baldwin Telephone (Troy, WI)

So I wanted to know John’s winning model and he was kind anough to share it. Here are his guidelines:

1. Choose good projects
2. Build partnerships with existing providers. This will allow you to hit the ground runing, which allows the customers see the difference more quickly and the project ROI is quicker.
3. Find partners who are flexible and who aren’t tied into a particular way of dong things – flexible with partner and technology choices as well as flexible with their roles in the project.
4. John didn’t say this, but I would mention the advantage of having someone or an organization such as John (U-reka Broadband) who is there to facilitate the deals, manage the moving pieces and create win-win-win partnerships.

John mentioned that he enjoys working with municpalities, cooperatives and locally based independents. These are folks who have similar values. They want their towns and territories to be successful and they are generally able to take a longer view of a project than larger providers and/or start ups.

I asked about how he might think of this if he were a community. What might be different? He had some additional advice:

• Look at the list of the tasks required to bring better broadband to your areas.And take a realistic look at what is required and what your optmial role might be.
• Know what you can and cannot do. Know what you want and don’t want. For example – know if you want to own and manage the network or if you are intersted in forming a partnership with someone who migth take care of that side of the network.
• When choosing a partner, look nearby. Proximity make building or expanding a network easier. So talk to your local providers. If they aren’t interested, map out the cooperatives in your region and appraoch them about coming into your area.

Prove Models and Build Demand

It might have been handy to have John’s winning secrets before the ARRA applications were due – but then hindsight is always 20/20. We talked a little bit about the “now what?” part of the equation – for John and folks like him, for the communities that got funded and the ones who didn’t as well as for federal funding.

Many of the folks who build networks are pretty much booked for the next 2-3 years. We’ll see a lot of building and digging next spring and the spring after. And the projects that were funded will be sending in reports to the RUS and NTIA. So, half of the players will be busy proving their models.

Then there’s the broadband adoption folks – like Blandin’s MIRC project – who are working to get nonusers interested, trained and involved in using broadband. Building up that demand, may help spur more broadband deployment. Again these folks will be sending in their reports, proving their models.

Folks who are on the sidelines will probably be playing a waiting game. Waiting to see if successful models and/or technologies emerge from the ARRA projects. Waiting to see of the NTIA/RUS/FCC offer more incentives to expand broadband.

John‘s final note was that funding mechanism was essential for getting networks to areas that will not be served by market-driven providers – but he was confident that more federal funding will emerge – maybe not to the same extent as it was made available by the recent ARRA funds and/or maybe not to any great extent in the next 2-3 years but that once the models have been proven and demand built, more funding will come. I’m thinking that when the time comes, I might just repost John’s advice.

Second Round NTIA Computer Center Grant

We are very excited to announce the approval of the Leech Lake Business Committee Computer Center grant.  This $1.7 million grant will bring new and improved computer centers to Leech Lake, Red Lake and White Earth Bands that will focus on bringing computer skills to the youth and entrepreneurs residing in these communities.  Some of the reasons I believe the grant was approved include:

1. Partnership between Bands-the ability to make an award that will serve three traditionally underserved Tribal communities
2. Support Partners-by utilizing the Boys and Girls Clubs to manage the computer centers and provide youth training plus Bemidji State University providing business training the computers won’t just be put in place but also have programs that will utilize the facilities and create educational programs that raise the bar for Tribal residents
3. Meet the FCC commitment to better serve tribal communities-while the FCC was not involved in the decision process this program will definitely assist in reaching these communities.

It was my pleasure to work with Bill Coleman and Kelly Peterson on the application and I greatly appreciate the assistance from Boys and Girls Clubs, Bemidji State University and Tribal Leaders and Staff.

Connecting Rural America: a report from the USDA

A new report (Connecting Rural America) is out on the outcomes of the RUS-funded ARRA projects. According to the report…

So far, the more than $1 billion in funding awarded by RUS has been used to fund 68 projects in 31 states. During a conference call with reporters, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the projects will bring broadband service to an estimated 529,249 households, 92,754 businesses and 3,332 so-called “anchor” institutions, such as schools, hospitals, libraries and other community facilities.

Minnesota’s Windom project is one of nine featured projects…

Minnesota
The city of Windom, Minn., a member of the Southwest Minnesota Broadband Group (SWMBG), will provide Fiber-To-The-Premises (FTTP) infrastructure to eight rural communities in southwestern Minnesota. SWMBG includes the communities of Jackson, Lakefield, Windom, Round Lake, Bingham Lake, Brewster, Wilder, Heron Lake, and Okabena. The network will consist of a 125-mile fiber ring that will connect the communities to the Windomnet network and an FTTP infrastructure within the communities. The ring will be 96 strands with a 1-gigabyte transport network that is easily upgradeable to 10 gigabytes.

The report also gives brief summaries of all funded projects listed by state.

First Round and Second Round Converge?

As we work with Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services on their first round approved application it looks like 2011 will be a very busy year for equipment and material vendors and construction contractors in 2011.  Most first round winners will not really start significant construction until 2011 (especially those of us in the northern half of the United States); at the same time second round applications are to be awarded by September 30th, 2010 giving those winners significant time to be ready for the 2011 construction season.

So what does this mean, contractors and materials could be in short supply in 2011.  We are working to make sure we have an adequate pipeline with our clients in 2011 to ensure we can meet the dates and expectations of the customers waiting to use the network.

Also check out the Southwest Minnesota Broadband Services website at www.swmbg.org for more information on the project.

Round 2 Applications Submitted!!

So this is it; the last day to submit round 2 applications.  I wanted to update you all what we have been working on for round 2.

1. Headwaters Tribal Alliance Computer Centers-got the fortune of working with Bill Coleman and Kelly Peterson on this application to bring over 250 computers to communities across the Leech Lake, Red Lake and White Earth Reservations.  More details on the infrastructure work we have been doing in the area later.
2. TDS-we assisted with eight of the environmental studies for TDS who wins the award for most apps submitted I know of-46.
3. Ramsey County Broadband Coalition-our CLEC subsidiary, Minnesota Fiber Exchange, was chosen as the partner for this project.  A 145 mile $35 million project that would connect anchor institutions across Ramsey County.  Minnesota Fiber Exchange would operate a dark fiber network for network providers if approved.  Thanks to the team from Ramsey County and St. Paul, especially Jim Farstad, Tarkus, Mike Reardon and Matt Schmidt who we all spent too much time on conference calls with over the last few weeks.
4. Lake and St. Louis County-as part of our association with National Public Broadband we submitted a $68 million application to bring FTTP to Lake County and the Eastern portion of St. Louis County.
5. Farmers Telephone and Lac qui Parle FTTP project-this project would bring a $9.8 million network to the remainder of the County unserved by Farmers Telephone.  A great partnership between local government and telecom provider.
6. Baldwin Telecom and Town of Troy Wisconsin.  A $9.9 million FTTP network to bring services to the Town of Troy Wisconsin.  Great partnership between local government and telecom provider.

I hope to be updating you on the status of successful applications over the next few months.  I want to thank all of those who worked with us on our projects.  I am lucky to be associated with such a group of professionals.  A special thanks to Brian Estrem, Paavo Pyykkonen and Jim Webb for their positive attitudes and counsel.

Two Minnesota awards in latest ARRA award announcements

Yesterday, US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced 10 new ARRA broadband stimulus awards. The total investment is more than $63 million in grants. The goal is to increase broadband access and adoption in more than a dozen states, including two that will help boost broadband adoption in Minnesota. The grants will fund projects that lay the groundwork to bring enhanced high-speed Internet access to thousands of households and businesses and link hundreds of schools, hospitals, libraries, and public safety offices to the information superhighway.

Here are the projects that will have a direct impact on Minnesota

Minnesota – C.K. Blandin Foundation: $4.9 million sustainable broadband adoption grant with an additional $1.5 million applicant-provided match to launch the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities initiative, a multi-sector, comprehensive approach to sustainable broadband adoption targeting residents, small businesses, local governments, and critical services providers in each of Minnesota’s 80 rural counties. The project anticipates training as many as 2,500 individuals in computer literacy, online education, and workforce development, and plans to distribute 1,000 affordable refurbished computers. Funding will also support the development of institutional broadband applications for schools and healthcare facilities to help increase broadband adoption. (Learn more)

Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Texas – Mission Economic Development Agency: $3.7 million public computer center grant with an additional $2.5 million applicant-provided match to create 12 new public computer centers and expand five existing ones in Phoenix, Ariz.; Canoga Park, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, Calif.; Del Norte, Colo.; Blackfoot, Idaho; Wheaton, Md.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Kansas City, Mo.; Anthony, NM; Philadelphia, Pa.; and San Antonio and Laredo, Texas. Each center expects to operate on the project’s centrally managed network and provide computer training and adult education to a low broadband adoption, high unemployment target population through a standardized English-Spanish training curriculum.

Minnesota broadband bill passes

Today the Minnesota Legislature passed the Minnesota Broadband Bill. Here are the highlights:

Universal access and high-speed goal. It is the goal of this state that, no later than 2015, all state residents and businesses have access to broadband that provides download speeds of no less than ten megabits per second and upload speeds of no less than five megabits per second.

State broadband leadership position. It is the goal of this state that by 2015, and continuing thereafter: (1) the proportion of Minnesota residents and businesses having access to broadband ranks among the five states in the United States and the 15 nations globally that have the highest proportion of that measure; and (2) Minnesota ranks among the five states in the United States with the highest broadband speed that is universally accessible to state residents and businesses.

Annual reports. By February 10, 2011, and each year thereafter, the commissioner of commerce shall submit a report to the chairs and ranking minority members of the house of representatives and senate committees with primary jurisdiction over telecommunications policy measuring the progress made towards achieving the goals under subdivisions 1 and 2. The report must identify any barriers impeding the achievement of the goals, suggest strategies to overcome those barriers, and estimate the cost of implementing those strategies.

Advisory group. By July 1, 2010, the commissioner of commerce shall appoint and convene a broadband advisory group consisting of no more than 15 members representing suppliers and users of broadband goods and services. Members serve without compensation at the pleasure of the commissioner. The broadband advisory group shall meet at the call of the chair, and shall seek public input. The broadband advisory group shall advise the commissioner of commerce and the house of representatives and senate committees with primary jurisdiction over telecommunications policy regarding strategies to achieve the goals under subdivision 1. This subdivision expires June 30, 2015.