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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Bill seeks regular funding for rural broadband

Marcus White
Posted 1/24/19

ST. PAUL - A bill sponsored here last week by Rep. Rob Ecklund (D-International Falls) seeks continued funding for rural broadband projects amounting to $70 million over the next biennum.

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Bill seeks regular funding for rural broadband

Posted

ST. PAUL - A bill sponsored here last week by Rep. Rob Ecklund (D-International Falls) seeks continued funding for rural broadband projects amounting to $70 million over the next biennum.

The bill, advanced by the Minnesota Rural Broadband Coalition, would change how the state funds projects in the rural areas. Currently, the program, known as the Border-to-Border Grant ,only gives funding through one-time appropriations.

For broadband projects, that has created problems, said spokesperson Judy Erickson, and the new legislation would create ongoing funding for such efforts.

A previous attempt to obtain funding fell short when legislators, in 2017 put funding in a 900-page omnibus bill that Gov. Mark Dayton ultimately vetoed.

Ecklund’s bill would add more funding. The 2017 measure included $20 million, only a fraction of the $70 million in requests that communities proposed.

“We hope this bill will encourage and enable projects on the ground in ways they haven’t been able to do before,” Erickson said.

The bill, however, will not solve how companies are held accountable for the services they provide to small towns and rural areas. Erickson said the coalition plans to address that in a separate piece of legislation, currently being written.

“We do recognize that there are some policy issues that may need to be addressed to solve underserved and unserved areas where we have run into walls,” she said.

Some of those issues have resulted in long delays in service expansion projects, such as in areas around Orr where CenturyLink has been working on a million-dollar project to expand their capacity in the city. With the uncertainty of that project, the city council recently voted to allow another company to try and solve the town’s Internet woes through wireless internet.

“Sometimes it needs to be an outside provider who wants to come in,” Erickson said. “Homeowners and local government buy in together to bring in outside help.”

Policy aside, Erickson said there has been reluctance on the part of local governments and companies to commit to long-term improvements because of past funding uncertainty. She hopes the funding bill, with a promise of guaranteed year-over-year funding will alleviate that reluctance and allow projects to move forward.

Ecklund said both bills, funding and policy, need to focus on the underserved.

“Where I live, I am considered served,” he said. “But what is frustrating is that I have three companies that go through my yard, but I can’t access any of them.”

Erickson said it is her hope that increased funding and improved policy in the bills would allow customers, like Ecklund, better Internet service in the long run.

The funding bill is expected to go to committee by the end of January, while the policy bill is scheduled for later in the session. Erickson said the coalition was not prepared to discuss the language of the policy bill at this time.