REGIONAL– Paul Bunyan Communications has been awarded a $3.9 million Minnesota Border- to-Border broadband grant to deploy its GigaZone high-speed broadband network to areas in Alango, Field, and Sturgeon townships.
The Low-Population Density Program funds up to 75 percent of eligible project costs to help providers build out broadband infrastructure in some of the more remote or costly-to-serve areas of the state with the cooperative investing the remainder to expand its all-fiber optic network to these areas.
The areas of Alango, Field, and Sturgeon townships to be served are west and southwest of the city of Cook. This project will include a total of 420 locations with a total cost of $6.023 million. The St. Louis County Broadband Infrastructure fund and the IRRRB Broadband Infrastructure fund is each contributing $400,000 toward the project, while Alango Township is contributing $41,200, Field Township, $17,800, and Sturgeon Township, $40,000. Paul Bunyan Communications will foot the $1.2 million remainder.
“We are thrilled to continue our expansion efforts, bringing high-speed broadband access to underserved areas in our region” said Chad Bullock, Paul Bunyan Communications incoming CEO and general manager. “While our cooperative has a strong history of expanding our network to underserved communities, it has become more challenging to do so independently without grant assistance due to the costs involved and low density of population in these rural areas. Thanks to the Low Population Density Grant program, we will now be able to extend our services to these areas, providing broadband speeds of up to ten gigabits per second and making them part of one of the largest rural gigabit networks in the nation,”
Paul Bunyan Communications expects to develop the expansion plans over the next year and will contact locations along the upcoming expansion routes once those plans are finalized and before construction starts.
GigaZone services will become available once the network is operational including broadband speeds of up to ten gigabits per second and low cost unlimited local and long distance phone service. Membership in the cooperative is included by subscribing to either local phone service or GigaZone Internet service.