Minnesota Gains 10-Gigabit Broadband for Schools from Telecommunications Group

Schools throughout a large part of northwestern Minnesota will be getting 10 gigabit broadband as the result of a cooperative effort between a school district consortium and a consortium of 18 small local telecom service providers. The initiative builds on a 13-year relationship between the telecommunications company consortium, known as Northwest Minnesota Special Access (NMSA), and NWLINKS, the school district consortium.

In 2009, NMSA made the decision to bring fiber to all of the NWLINKS schools. E-Rate funding helped cover schools’ monthly service charges but each telecommunications company in the NMSA consortium was responsible for the cost of deploying fiber where needed. At that time some companies already had made fiber deployments and even offered fiber-to-the-home, while others had not. Some other small telecommunications companies in various parts of the country have found that once they bring fiber to anchor institutions such as schools, it is easier to make a business case for broader Fiber-to-the-Home or fiber to the node deployments.