DEED grants were announced for Minnesota’s Border to Border Broadband Development Program and Scandia made the list! Scandia was the only DEED grant won by MidCo this year! (For construction in 2021)
From the attached release:
Midco (Midcontinent Communications) – Scandia – GRANT $78,824
This last mile project will serve 78 underserved households and one underserved business in remote neighborhoods of Scandia in Washington County. In a funding partnership with the State of Minnesota and City of Scandia, Midco will improve broadband service levels to symmetrical 5 Gbps speeds, exceeding the State’s 2022 and 2026 speed goals. By providing high-speed broadband services in the Scandia area, this project improves access to critical school e-learning and telehealth and will stimulate a more robust local economy.
Total eligible project cost is $434,144 Local match is $355,320
I am very pleased Minnesota went ahead with their grants and did not allow RDOF to delay our build out this year. We’re still unable to have discussions with MidCo since the RDOF process remains in flux, but we expect to be able to speak with them soon. Then we will be able to get a better idea how the DEED and RDOF grants won by MidCo for Scandia will work together to expand to more households than DEED alone.
Here is a map showing the MidCo DEED and RDOF areas from Steve’s very helpful Google Map. The DEED area is in green and the RDOF area is orange. The prior years’ builds are shown in purple and blue. The dots are addresses.
As the Scandia Internet Action Committee has discussed before, we’ll work with MidCo to ‘fill the gaps’ and get as many homes connected with these grants as possible. With funds already committed by the City Council for Internet expansion in 2021, RDOF, and direct aid from homeowners, we’ll push the new households served well above the 78 of the DEED grant alone.
Bob Wilmers, Scandia Internet Action Committee Chair