What the pandemic revealed about Minnesota’s efforts to bring high-speed internet to everyone in the state

Thirteen years after Minnesota first established a broadband task force to study how to bring the internet to everyone within its borders, COVID-19 has not only highlighted how critical broadband is for rural communities throughout Minnesota, it’s also reinforced how difficult and expensive reaching that goal has become. The Legislature has spent more than $126 million since 2014 on a grant program to address the state’s internet disparities, but the issue has once again become a top issue for many at the Minnesota Capitol. Several plans now being considered would help telecom companies build internet infrastructure across the state, including one with a price tag of $120 million over the next two years. At the same time, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) has proposed a separate $50 million measure, while federal programs have also promised huge injections of cash for rural broadband. But even as those proposals are debated, the state task force on broadband is considering whether the bar for true connectivity should be set higher than it is under Minnesota’s current grant program.

When Minnesota first created a broadband grant program in 2014, the state had a goal for universal access to service with download speeds of 25 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of 3 Mbps. Now, 92.47 percent of Minnesota has access to internet with 25/3 Mbps speeds, including 83.1 percent of rural areas. In 2016, the state hiked its speed goal, saying it wanted universal access to the internet with speeds of 100/20 Mbps by 2026. As the state focuses on that goal, most projects funded now meet those faster criteria and all are required to be built so that they can be easily upgraded to provide even greater speeds. While projects now must be built to allow them to be upgraded to 100/100 Mbps, the task force report says there is no current mechanism or funding to ensure that the infrastructure is actually changed to meet those speeds. In other words, even if the state meets its 2022 goal — or even its 2026 mark — experts say more will need to be done.