REGIONAL- Paul Bunyan Communications has been awarded a $5.5 million Minnesota Border-to-Border Broadband low-density pilot grant to expand its all fiber-optic GigaZone network into areas of Angora, Alango, Balkan, Beatty, and Owens townships in St. Louis County.
The overall project is estimated to cost $7.5 million, with the Border-to-Border grant covering $5.57 million of the cost and Paul Bunyan Communications investing about $1.9 million. Financial contributions from Angora and Balkan townships will be $33,104 and $42,157, respectively.
The Angora, Alango, Beatty, and Owens township areas are primarily between Cook and Britt along U.S. Hwy. 53.
The Balkan Township project will reach nearly every home in the township, located north of Chisholm. It also includes several locations in the unorganized township west of Balkan, including those around Dewey and McCormack lakes.
“Our cooperative has a long history of expanding our network to underserved areas, but it has become increasingly challenging to go it alone without grant support as this project demonstrates,” said Gary Johnson, Paul Bunyan Communications CEO/General Manager. “These are very rural areas and that makes the cost of construction challenging. Even for our not-for-profit cooperative, without this low-density program these areas would be too costly to expand to. Thanks to this program these areas will get broadband access with internet speeds up to a 10 gigabits per second and become part of one of the largest rural gigabit networks in the country.”
Paul Bunyan Communications expects to develop the expansion plan over the next 1-2 years and will contact locations along the upcoming expansion routes once those plans are finalized.
“We are very excited about this project,” said Steve Howard, PBC Information Technology and Development Manager. ”This is going to bring symmetrical fiber-optic broadband to very rural locations that desperately need it. This will be very impactful for many of the residents in these areas who will now be able to work from home, access virtual education, leverage telehealth, and enjoy the many other benefits of quality broadband internet services that weren’t available.”
The cooperative’s services will become available once the network is operational including GigaZoneTM, service options like broadband internet speeds of up to 10 Gigabits per second and low cost unlimited local and long-distance voice service.