Minnesota regulators suspend crucial designation for controversial LTD Broadband

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) voted unanimously to suspend a crucial certification for LTD Broadband, dealing a blow to the company and its hopes of unblocking $311 million in federal cash to build infrastructure for high-speed internet across rural Minnesota. In December 2020, LTD won more than $1.32 billion nationally through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to develop blazing-fast internet in rural areas, including more than $311 million in Minnesota. The outcome shocked many in the telecommunications industry because LTD was relatively small and had little experience building the fiber-optic cable infrastructure required under the program. LTD was "unequal to the task of building out the vital infrastructure that the people of greater Minnesota need," wrote Assistant Attorney General Erin Conti in a letter to the PUC. The PUC decision came at an important juncture for LTD Broadband after the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) revoked a huge RDOF award in August 2022, saying at the time that LTD Broadband was not capable of building the fiber-optic cable networks it had promised.