Expanding fiber internet access in Minnesota

Although Minnesota’s broadband initiative is “technology agnostic,” meaning that the state is open to using all kinds of broadband services to meet its goals, Maki says fiber is often the top choice. “We have speed goals and network requirements,” she says. “In most cases, the technology that can meet those requirements is fiber.”

 As of 2024, the FCC’s benchmarks for high-speed broadband include:

• Download speeds of 100 megabits/second

• Upload speeds of 20 megabits/second

Fiber internet meets those standards and can exceed them by up to 80 times in areas where multi-gig speed is available. Fiber also typically provides symmetrical speed, meaning users can upload data as fast as they can download it.

There’s also the question of network capacity. For example, people who work or study from home require an average of 600 gigabytes of data per month. Fiber internet plans generally exceed those standards; technologies like DSL and wireless often do not.

No matter how you define success, fiber broadband can be a key factor. It can bring quantifiable benefits to every industry, including:

Business

Large and small businesses alike rely on fast, dependable, high-capacity internet for everything from point-of-sale transactions to ecommerce. Ecommerce alone now accounts for 15.9 percent of total retail sales in the U.S.

Small businesses that adopt technology platforms can see double-digit increases in sales, employment, and profits. That’s especially true in rural areas, where high-speed broadband is essential to entrepreneurship.

Healthcare

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine was on the rise. In 2019, more than half of American households reported using the internet for health-related activities. Just three months into the pandemic, telemedicine use increased by 766 percent. By 2022, the number of physicians using telemedicine doubled. There’s also a direct relationship between high-speed broadband and overall health. According to the FCC, areas of the U.S. with lower broadband access suffer from:

• Higher rates of obesity and diabetes

• Higher rates of preventable illness

• Decreased access to physicians

With the advantages of fiber internet, more people can get the care they need—no matter where they live.

Education

A study suggests that the availability of fiber broadband may increase elementary school passing rates and students’ performance on standardized testing. Those benefits apply to students across the demographic spectrum, regardless of location, ethnicity, or gender. Fiber offers a strong connection for speed, capacity, and dependability.

“We looked at the market differently than most,” says Brinkman of the fiber loop initiative. “No one wanted to spend (money) on long-haul routes where you can't immediately recover costs. But an agency like ours can look at a 20, 25, and 30-year plan and fund it half through grants and half through loans. We could make that happen for everybody.”

NESC now proudly calls its middle-mile fiber network the “provider’s provider”: It serves at least 18 different telecom companies that use its network to bring last-mile fiber connections to homes and businesses.

“Telecommunications companies have used our assets as part of their applications to the Office of Broadband Development’s Border-to-Border funding,” says Brinkman. “Funds tend to go to folks who can demonstrate numbers,” he says. With a preexisting middle-mile network to rely on, private ISPs can reach more Minnesotans than ever before.

Because private ISPs can use existing infrastructure, delivering last-mile fiber broadband can be much more cost-effective. While Brinkman stresses that they can’t take full credit due to overall market trends, he acknowledges, “We’ve seen decreased costs and increased connectivity year-over-year over 15-plus years of operation.”

NESC’s fiber broadband network covers a vast swath of Minnesota. “Anything north of about 60 miles south of Duluth is likely running through our network,” says Brinkman.

That area includes the state’s Iron Range, which has dense, rocky terrain that makes trenching cable difficult. Despite those challenges, Brinkman says that 99 percent of their middle-mile network is underground. “We used to have a jar,” he jokes. “If you suggested aerial lines, you had to put in $100.”

Broad coverage isn’t the only advantage of NESC’s fiber broadband network. It also virtually guarantees dependable coverage—if a line is cut, data is rerouted within a fraction of a second.

The combination of availability and reliability has brought enormous benefits to communities in Northeast Minnesota. “The network we have in place has clearly met the needs of health care in the region, particularly for imaging and home health,” says Brinkman. It’s also been a boon to school districts there. “Year over year,” Brinkman says, “schools have been expanding their capacity and decreasing their costs.”