IE 11 Not Supported

For optimal browsing, we recommend Chrome, Firefox or Safari browsers.

Survey to Help Minnesota Tackle Local Broadband Issues

The survey will help county leaders assess what's currently available and kick-start the development of plans in cooperation with local providers.

(TNS) -- In an effort to get a better grasp of local broadband services, the Kandiyohi County and City of Willmar Economic Development Commission is launching a survey this month to assess what's available and where the gaps lie.

The first round of the survey will be small in scale and will test the waters for broader data collection as the year progresses.

Organizers see it as a step in larger efforts aimed at keeping Kandiyohi County from falling too far behind in broadband services.

There's a need to stay diligent, said Jean Spaulding, assistant director of the Economic Development Commission.

"If we don't, with the way the workforce is changing, we really will be left behind," she said.

The challenge at the local level is to keep up with needs and technology that are constantly evolving.

As recently as five years ago, the main issue was whether people had adequate access to high-speed Internet services, Spaulding said. "Now it's not 'Are you connected?' because everybody is more and more connected. Now it's 'Are you connected fast enough?'"

Connect Minnesota released new figures late last year on how counties measure up against state standards for minimally acceptable Internet speed -- 10 megabits per second for downloading and 6 megabits per second for upload speed.

The data uncovered significant disparities, not only between urban and rural but also among individual rural counties.

In some counties, such as Lac qui Parle, 90 percent or more of households had access to Internet speeds that met the standards. But in neighboring Chippewa, Swift and Yellow Medicine counties, fewer than half of households had access to acceptable Internet speeds.

In Kandiyohi County, only 13 percent of households met the standard.

The gap came as a bit of a surprise to many Kandiyohi County leaders who had expected a better ranking.

It's upload speeds that account for this lag, and it looms as an increasingly critical issue for businesses that rely on information uploads to carry out everything from farming geolocation to telemedicine.

"That's where the change needs to happen, and that is where fiber becomes more and more important," Spaulding said.

Workforce observers point to some key trends that reinforce the need for broadband capabilities: a growing demand for "knowledge" workers, increasing use of technology that gives workers the flexibility to choose where they live, and growth in companies' use of freelance and contract workers to provide creative talent. According to some estimates, by 2020 as much as 40 percent of the workforce could be "solopreneurs" engaged in running a solo creative or knowledge-based business.

Rural Minnesota stands to benefit -- but not if broadband services fall short of adequate upload speeds, Spaulding said. "We need to attract workers. That's part of our mission. We need to be able to provide the services they need to thrive here."

The survey will help county leaders assess what's currently available and begin discussing how to address it, she said. "We feel that we need to document the need and communicate with the providers the results of the data. I'd really like to see us come up with a plan that is developed in cooperation with providers."

Despite what may seem like slow progress, there continues to be movement forward. Last week the Minnesota Office of Broadband Development, a division of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, awarded nearly $20 million in grants to 17 service providers for improvement projects.

In a reflection of the heightened priority locally for the role of broadband, the Kandiyohi County and City of Willmar Economic Development Commission also promoted its technology subcommittee this year to full committee status, giving it a $4,000 budget.

"I think that we are making progress," Spaulding said. "We just have to keep working at it."

County residents who receive the EDC survey are urged to participate, she said. "We are hopeful people will not disregard the importance. Taking the time and giving us the feedback matters."

©2015 West Central Tribune (Willmar, Minn.)