Big Stone County is on track to meet the MN state speed goals for both 2022 and 2026.
| Percentage of Served Population by Speed and Date | |||
| Big Stone | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
| 100/20 (2026 goal) | 98.91 | 98.91 | 70.12 |
| 25/3 (2022 goal) | 99.58 | 98.91 | 70.12 |
Green=served Purple=underesrved Red=unserved
In 2014, Big Stone benefited from a MN state broadband grant:
- 2014 – Federated Telephone Cooperative, Big Stone County
Award: $3.92 million. Total project cost: $7.92 million. Impact: Service to 1,072 unserved premises in the communities of Barry, Beardsley and Johnson, and rural parts of Big Stone County
By 2018, the percentages of households with access to 100/20 had gone from 70 percent to almost 99 percent. The county is served primarily by Federated Telephone, which has been expanding deployment of Fiber to the Home (FTTH) across its service territory in that region for years.
One anomaly, the coverage for 25/3 and 100/20 was the same for 2017 and 2018. This year there is a small increase in coverage of 25/3. Now 98.91 percent of Big Stone have access to 100/20 (no change from last year), yet 99.58 percent have access to 25/3. My concern would be that a few households have been upgraded to 25/3 only. Perhaps this is a temporary measure and part of a future anticipated upgrade; if not, down the road those recently upgraded households will have considerably slower broadband than their neighbors, which will impact resale value.
Checklist:
- 100/20 ranking: 5 (down 1)
- 25/3 ranking: 6 (up 3)
- Has worked with Blandin: yes
- Has received a MN Broadband grant: yes
- Household density: 4.3
- Number of providers: 7
Details:
- Find more articles on broadband in Big Stone County. (http://tinyurl.com/zfgwstd)
- There is a matrix of Minnesota broadband adoption projects; it includes projects from this area.
- Districts: CD 7
Senate: 12
House: 12A - Find your reps
I am doing the annual look at broadband in each county – based on maps from the Office of Broadband Development and news gathered from the last year. I’m looking at progress toward the 2022 (25 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up) and 2026 (100 Mbps down and 20 Mbps up) and will code each:
- Red (yikes)
- Yellow (warning)
- Green (good shape)
Blandin on Broadband 