The race for federal stimulus funds to bring fiber optic technology to Cook County is on. With the county’s first-round grant application denied, Arrowhead Electric, in partnership with Pulse Broadband, and Qwest are vying for second-round dollars to bring a fiber optic network to Cook County, but they are not the only ones. Yet another ownership model is being proposed by the Northeast Service Cooperative of Mountain Iron, Minnesota, a public nonprofit cooperative, and this model would support private industry.
The Northeast Service Cooperative (NESC) is one of eight regional public nonprofit cooperatives set up by the state to support education – it hosts all of the state’s Knowledge Bowls, for example, and its board is comprised of public school district board members. It has to secure its own funds rather than automatically getting funding from the state, and it tries to find creative ways to recoup its expenses through the services it provides. “We’re in some ways entrepreneurial,” said Director of Information Technology Lyle MacVey.
Cook County may reap giant benefits from the Northeast Service Cooperative’s effort to bring the highest-quality fiber optic connections to Cook County students. Its stimulus grant application is requesting a $32,000,000 grant/loan to install fiber optic lines throughout the entire county.
NESC has already been awarded a $43.5 million grant that will bring fiber optic line up the North Shore to the Canadian border along the Highway 61 corridor, called its “Middle-Mile Project.” This new initiative—called “ArrowheadConnect-Cook County,” a “last-mile” project, would bring fiber optic line to almost every doorstep in the county.
If it were awarded the second grant, 25%, or $8,600,000, would have to be paid back to the federal government. That’s where boosting private industry comes in. The Northeast Service Cooperative believes it should not compete with the private sector and has been working to include Qwest, CenturyTel, and Mediacom in this project. MacVey said that including these “incumbent” corporations would bring about a much quicker financial recovery rate, even though pricing is expected to be competitive and favorable for users.
Under this model, the Northeast Service Cooperative would own the “unbundled dark fiber”—the fiber optic lines themselves without any services—and private companies would attach their own technologies at either end and provide services to Cook County customers. “What we’re bringing to the table,” said MacVey, “is the freeway and roads. What we’re not bringing to the table is the cars, trucks, and goods.”
Working with current
providers
“We want jobs to be created, not just displaced,” MacVey said. Elbowing out private companies that are already here would take jobs away from people. Working with all the incumbents– Qwest, CenturyTel, and Mediacom (and even the local nonprofit Internet service provider, Boreal Access)–will protect the providers and their employees. The private companies would lease use of the fiber optic lines from NESC.
The fiber that NESC proposes to install would be able to accommodate faster and better technologies that could be available or more affordable in the future at both ends of the line. Theintent would be to build the network so it wouldn’t need to be built over again.
An April 8 press release from NESC says this project could be a first in the industry and could serve as a national model for installing fiber optic networks in sparsely populated, large rural areas. It calls Cook County “one of the most rural counties in Minnesota” and says that the Minnesota Broadband Task Force ranked Cook County 87th out of 87 counties in the state for access to wireless broadband services.
The NESC press release quoted Cook County Fiber Optic Commissioner and Hedstrom Lumber Company President Howard Hedstrom: “Technology keeps moving ahead, and the need for fast connections is increasing year after year and is leaving us behind without broadband,” he said.
County Commissioner Bruce Martinson, also on the Fiber Optic Commission, would like to bring opportunities for young people to secure good jobs here. “I keep hearing from constituents that we need to keep our youth in the county, and this is one way to achieve that goal,” he said.
“We appreciate this unique opportunity to work with the people of Cook County,” said NESC Executive Director Paul Brinkman. Referring to grants that have been awarded to Blandin Foundation for community broadband implementation training and to NESC for its middle-mile project, Brinkman added, “This project builds upon new opportunities recently funded…through the Blandin Foundation and the Northeast Service Cooperative.”
NESC filed the Round 2 application for the Cook County project under the USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Broadband Initiative Program (BIP) on March 29. Announcements regarding successfully funded projects are expected over the next several months.
According to NESC, its application strongly aligns with many of the goals set forth within the MN Broadband Task Force Report and within the recently announced FCC National Broadband Plan.
NESC has successfully operated a region-wide network since 2000. The organization is experienced in designing, building, and operating telecommunications networks.
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