A Tribal-Owned Broadband Company in Fond du Lac (MN)

Providing high-speed internet in rural MN today is as vital as providing rural electricity was some 80 years ago, said Jason Hollinday, planning director for the Fond du Lac (MN) Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. That’s why the band has taken the unusual step of creating its own broadband company to provide fiber-optic internet service throughout its reservation, about 20 miles west of Duluth. “We’re giving people the tools to live in the 21st century,” Hollinday said. “It’s like when they were electrifying the rural areas. This is the modern version of that.” The band has created a corporation, Aaniin, to build and provide fiber-optic service to all residents of the reservation, whether or not they’re tribal members. Main lines are in the process of being laid and should be completed sometime in Nov; workers then will begin the process of running fiber-optic lines to as many as 1,800 households on the roughly 39,000-acre reservation.