These days it seems that almost everyone is a content creator.
And that means it’s never been more important to have fast, reliable internet available to everyone, everywhere.
That was the message Glenn Zerbe, chief executive officer of Nuvera, shared with Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove during a roundtable discussion in mid-April.
“It’s not just Netflix creating and sending out content,” Zerbe said. “Content and creativity are coming from the home, and it’s changing everything.”
Grove agreed with the importance — and the urgency — of providing broadband internet access throughout the state. It’s been a priority at DEED and for Gov. Tim Walz’s administration for some time, including the governor’s proposal to invest $170 million — in addition to federal grant dollars — to fully connect the state.
The state Legislature established goals to guide the state’s broadband development efforts through 2026, among them that all Minnesota businesses and homes have access to high-speed broadband with minimum download speeds of 25 megabits per second and minimum download speeds of 3 megabits per second, and that all businesses and homes have access to at least one provider of broadband with download speeds of 100 mbps and upload speeds of 20 mbps.
Yet, more than 240,000 households in Minnesota still lack broadband access, according to Grove. He’s hoping that a portion of the state’s budget surplus will be used to solve that problem, however.
“This is really a moment, a really historic moment, to invest a record amount of money that we have available to us to really finish the job in Minnesota,” Grove said. “That’s been the governor’s line to us from the very beginning, we should finish the job. And we have done the math on that and we figured out what out what it takes, about $175 million to put toward broadband to get us across the finish line so that we’re not longer having this conversation about the haves and the have-nots when it comes to the internet.”
That push to elminite the “haves and have-nots” division is good news to folks like Hutchinson Public Schools Superintendent Daron VanderHeiden, who attended the roundtable discussion.
During the pandemic phase, when the school district implemented distance learning, internet access was a crucial component to continuing educational efforts. It remains important as students have returned to in-person learning.
“…(Our) bandwidth demand hasn’t changed, because instruction is permanently changed,” VanderHeiden said. “If a student is marked absent during the day, their teacher may send them a video lesson to view and complete online, not wait until they are back in the classroom.”
Nuvera has been working to improve internet service in Hutchinson, connecting its fiber network to the southern half of the city’s downtown, two areas near State Highway 15 on the south side of Hutchinson, and an area around the 3M campus in 2021. In March, the company announced it is targeting several other areas, including the southwest side of the city west of Dale Street and south of the Crow River; the north half of Main Street; and the south end of Hutchinson, east of Highway 15 and north of Airport Road. Additional connections will continue in the future, with a goal of covering the entire city by 2024.
Nuvera also is working to extend its fiber network in Litchfield and Glencoe, with plans to invest at least 50% of its revenue into capital investments in 2023 in order to provide up to 1 gigabyte speeds.
Investments in internet access like those made by Nuvera are important to the state’s economy, Grove said, because of the amplified role connectivity plays during the pandemic and continues to play.
“Saying 240,000 households don’t have access to broadband, that is kind of like saying there’s 240,000 households in this state that don’t have access to the modern economy, or modern plumbing, or pick your analogy,” Grove said. “But life doesn’t work without broadband. And companies like Nuvera are making sure that happens.”
