‘Middle mile’ broadband project under way

The project, called the Northeast Minnesota Middle Mile Fiber Project, will make dark fiber, wavelength services available to the public sector and to private sector technology service providers in unserved and underserved rural areas of northeast Minnesota.

Mike Hanson, Koochiching County commissioner, said he was pleased to be able to attend the ground breaking.

In Koochiching County, the project is expected to extend fiber optic cables along U.S. Highway 53 from the south to International Falls, as well as extend fiber along Highway 217 from the Highway 53 intersection at Ray to Littlefork.

“It’s going to give us more options,” Hanson said of the communications infrastructure.

Koochiching County is expected to see work completed to lay the fiber in summer 2012, according to Lyle MacVey, project manager for the Northeast Service Cooperative. The groundbreaking was held at the NESC in Mountain Iron and attended by many regional and state officials.

“The vision of the Northeast Middle Mile Fiber Project was from the very inception destined to be one of the greatest public and private partnerships we will see in the area of telecommunications within northeast Minnesota and quite possibly within the entire nation,” MacVey said.

The United States Department of Agriculture award, half each from a loan and a grant, to support critical services is one of only six “middle-mile” infrastructure projects in the country. Rural Utilities Service at the USDA awarded NESC $43.5 million in federal funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in March 2010.

The project will make broadband services viable for a vast geographic region, creating an initial backbone that will serve critical service sites along 915 miles of fiber within eight counties of Minnesota including Koochiching, St. Louis, Lake, Cook, Carlton, Pine, Itasca, and Aitkin. It will connect anchor sites including state, county, city, higher education, school districts, libraries and health care, according to the NESC.

MacVey said the local school districts will review the service later this year. NESC is actively working with state and government agencies to determine usage.

The International Falls Public Library is expected to be connected. And MacVey said they have been discussing the program with various health-care providers.

He said users of these facilities will experience much higher speeds than are currently available.

“The Northeast Fiber Project positions northeast Minnesota to compete in the global economy,” said Paul Brinkman, executive director of NESC. “By aligning local, state and federal resources, building world-class broadband infrastructure and creating new public private partnerships, this landmark initiative will establish a foundation for sustainability and growth in our region for decades to come.”

MacVey said the $21.5 million in grant represents a major federal investment in this region. He extended a thank you to U.S. Sen. Al Franken, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, former Congressman, U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, the Iron Range delegation, and other government leaders for their support.

MacVey said the project may be extended beyond the current scope depending on funding allocations. He said Koochiching County was among the “primary areas of focus to add capacity.”

Frontier intends to use fiber

Frontier Communications has signed a letter of intent to work toward a contract with the NESC for use of fiber.

“Together, we are planning a future for northern Minnesota that boasts the benefits of technological diversity, incredible bandwidth, and lower cost bandwidth options,” said Rhonda Lutzke, senior vice president and general manager for Frontier Communications.

The announcement of the pursuit of a long-term arrangement with NESC on the usage of fiber in the northern Minnesota area was made during last week’s ground-breaking ceremony.

"We are thrilled about Frontier’s intentions to expand service in northeast Minnesota using fiber facilities to be constructed as part of our Northeast Middle Mile Fiber Project," Brinkman said.

Frontier and NESC are working with RUS to put together terms of a contract. Frontier intends to become a user of more than 450 miles of the network.

“We will be supplying the electronics for the fiber, essentially ‘lighting it,’ deploying sophisticated technology that offers huge bandwidth for our business and residential customers,” stated Lutzke.

MacVey noted that a year ago NESC started the process of identifying anchors and working together to develop relationships with the private carriers. These private carriers are one way private individuals and businesses may benefit in their services.

Frontier provides phone, entertainment and data services such as voice, high-speed Internet, satellite video, wireless Internet data access, data security solutions and business communication services.

“As we all know, communications is critical in every facet of our lives,” noted Lutzke. “And as the premier provider of broadband to rural America, Frontier Communications is keenly aware of having high speed Internet services available to provide work from home opportunities, distance learning and tele-medicine. Just because someone chooses not to live in Minneapolis doesn’t mean they shouldn’t have all the services of the large city.”

Lutzke said Frontier saw an “outstanding opportunity” with NESC’s fiber network initiative.

“This opportunity would allow us to offer our customers in northern Minnesota more bandwidth, lower cost bandwidth, and significantly diverse transport, that is, multiple voice and data routes,” she said. “These benefits translate into an impressive economic future for northern Minnesota and our customers.”