Minnesota Broadband Director Builds on State’s Rural Funding Heritage

Minnesota didn’t wait for the federal government’s help to make funding available for rural broadband deployments. The state’s Border to Border program is often cited as a model for rural broadband funding. That heritage should help the state as it moves forward on implementing its portion of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) rural broadband funding program. Bree Maki, Minnesota’s executive director of the Office of Broadband Development, that while her job first and foremost is to represent and advocate for the state’s interests in the BEAD program, that can be tricky sometimes due to conflicting requirements among the different entities involved. “We’ve been told that states know best and we are eager to get going, but some of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) guidelines and requirements can make it challenging,” Maki said. “We may need to apply for waivers because our definitions of broadband—and what is considered unserved and underserved—are different than BEAD.” The BEAD program considers a location unserved if service levels are below 25/3 and underserved if service levels are between 25/3 Mbps and 100/20 Mbps, while the state of Minnesota considers a location to be unserved if it lacks wired broadband service of 100/20 Mbps. In the end, Maki looks forward to the day when she can look back and see the differences she and her office made for Minnesotans.