Carlton County Broadband Feasibility Study Report

Final – 12/18/2016

Contents Executive Summary ...... 1 Terminology and Background ...... 4 Overview of Project and Service Area ...... 4 Overview of Sponsor ...... 4 Carlton County Census and Demographic Information ...... 5 U of M – Brain Drain/Gain & Carlton County ...... 6 Why Broadband Isn’t Ubiquitous – Provider Classification ...... 8 Price-Cap Carriers...... 8 Rate of Return Carriers ...... 11 Mobile Wireless Providers ...... 11 Fixed Wireless Providers ...... 11 Cable TV Providers ...... 12 Satellite ISPs ...... 12 Incumbent Broadband Providers ...... 13 Community feedback ...... 17 Community Anchor Interviews ...... 17 Education ...... 17 Healthcare ...... 18 Business ...... 18 Carlton County Power Companies ...... 19 Social Media Research/Survey Outreach Results ...... 21 General Overview ...... 23 Residential ...... 25 Business ...... 29 Competition ...... 35 Target Market for a new ISP ...... 36 Technology Review ...... 37 DSL ...... 37 Cable Modem ...... 38 Fiber to the Home ...... 39

ii (Final 12/18/2016) Fixed Wireless ...... 40 Satellite Internet ...... 41 Regulatory/Legal Considerations ...... 41 Telephone ...... 42 Cable Television ...... 42 Internet Services ...... 43 Other Regulatory/Business Considerations ...... 43 Potential County Broadband Organization Structures ...... 44 Partnership examples and benefits ...... 44 RS Fiber ...... 45 Lac Qui Parle County/Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative ...... 46 Cook County/Arrowhead Electric ...... 46 Dakota County ...... 47 Scott County ...... 47 Carver County ...... 47 City of Windom ...... 48 Google Fiber ...... 48 City of Monticello, MN ...... 48 PPP Summary and Options for Carlton County ...... 49 Potential Funding Sources ...... 50 CoBank ...... 50 USAC ...... 51 REDLG ...... 51 Rural Utility Service (RUS) ...... 51 Bonding ...... 52 Engineering Study Overview ...... 53 Assumptions for financial analysis ...... 53 Wireless (Fixed and Mobile) ...... 53 Fiber to the Home ...... 56 Baseline: Full County FTTH Overbuild ...... 58 Scenario 1: FTTH Build to Cover Unserved Areas ...... 61

iii (Final 12/18/2016) Scenario 2: Backbone Network-Only ...... 64 Scenario 3: Backbone Network with Select Local Build along the Way ...... 66 Conclusion: Two Possible Paths ...... 70 Next Steps ...... 72 Attachment 1-Social Media Survey Open Responses ...... 73 Please share an example of how the current speed of Internet services in Carlton County impacts your life at home or at work? ...... 73 If Carlton County had a faster Internet service available, what opportunities would that open up for your business to provide new products or services or reach new customers? Would it impact any opportunities for your family? ...... 99 Works Cited ...... 115

iv (Final 12/18/2016) Executive Summary The Broadband Feasibility Study was commissioned by Carlton County in conjunction with a local broadband committee. Carlton County stakeholders have identified gaps in broadband (availability, affordability, and reliability) that have limiting factors on their successful retention and growth of both business and residential population bases.

This project was funded through county funds as well as funding from the Blandin Foundation.

There is little argument about the extreme importance of broadband availability for a community, county, or region remaining competitive and effective in a global marketplace. Broadband speeds and deployment are increasing in Minnesota with continued expansion of fiber and upgrades of DSL and wireless technologies. Unfortunately, statewide, we have not met the goals that were set forth in 2012 Broadband Task Force’s Annual Report that “all state residents and businesses have access to high-speed broadband that provides minimum download speeds of 10 to 20 Megabits per second and minimum upload speeds of five to ten megabits per second [by 2015].”

The updated state speed goals, now include: (1) no later than 2022, all Minnesota businesses and homes have access to high-speed broadband that provides minimum download speeds of at least 25 Megabits per second, and minimum upload speeds of at least three megabits per second; and (2) no later than 2026, all Minnesota businesses and homes have access to at least one provider of broadband with download speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second and upload speeds of at least 20 Megabits per second.

As outlined in the Broadband Task Force’s most recent Annual report: “91.45 percent of Minnesota households have broadband access available at a speed of at least 10 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload, while 80.16 percent of rural Minnesota [does]. While the state has made progress toward reaching its broadband speed goals, it has not yet achieved universal access.”

Carlton County ranks 66 out of the 87 counties in Minnesota whose residents have access to 25/3 (25Mb download, 3Mb upload) speeds. 25/3 is the state’s interim goal, and the FCC’s definition of broadband.

Carlton County ranks 66 out of the 87 counties in Minnesota whose residents have access to 25/3 speeds. – MN Office of Broadband Development

This study seeks to characterize the state of broadband access in Carlton County and study the feasibility of improving it. Primary objectives of this study include:

1. Broadband overview and explanation of why the lack of broadband has occurred 2. A stakeholder review of the current state of broadband in Carlton County, including anecdotal evidence from county residents on their specific experiences 3. Design and cost modeling of a Fiber to the Home (FTTH) county-wide network. This baseline network would make fiber optic connectivity available to each home and

1 (Final 12/18/2016) business within Carlton County. The network would initially make access at 100 Mbps available to each home and business with design considerations to allow for future Gigabit connectivity network wide. 4. Study multiple variations of the county-wide FTTH network to identify realistic and practical projects that further broadband access throughout the county. 5. Outline potential partnership structures with telecommunications providers that would allow Carlton County to leverage the opportunities that a FTTH network would provide without requiring Carlton County to become a telecommunications company. Partnerships can reduce the burden of capital funding as a single entity, as well as facilitating the ability to deliver voice, video and internet services without the creation of core infrastructure/back-office to provide these services. 6. Review partnership ideas, strategies, and what might be needed to bring to potential partnership discussions 7. Design and cost modeling of a Wireless Overlay within Carlton County to ensure that increasing numbers of residents and businesses have access to some level of broadband service. 8. Consider Economic Development strategy to leverage the improved broadband services provided by new network options. 9. Gauge the level of public support for the county to make an investment in improving services 10. Provide foundational material and planning data for Carlton County to apply for a state broadband grant

Carlton County is in a challenging position. With its geographic proximity to the Duluth/Superior area, many businesses and residents find it hard to believe how drastically the level of broadband speeds diminishes within such a short distance from these population centers.

Our research suggests a bit of conflicting news regarding the biggest issues for connectivity in the towns within Carlton county. Some of the conversations we had started with statements along the lines of “little or no access is available,” but then seemed to morph into “cost prohibitive,” and then often would lead to discussions of the “lack of reliability and consistency.” It’s likely that some areas suffer from all of these issues, however, some areas seem to suffer from a lack of communication between the providers and customers on what is actually available and where. Additionally, the term “affordable” can mean many different things to different people and businesses, and while some of the pricing that was reported from the providers didn’t seem to be drastically out of line with other markets, customers were highly sensitive to broadband pricing.

Tackling broadband issues in Carlton county will require a multi-pronged approach likely including improvements in service and speed availability, but also educating residents and businesses to ensure proper expectations.

The cities of Cloquet and Carlton have service available from both CenturyLink and Mediacom, and relatively speaking, services available are adequate for most users’ needs. Clearly there are situations and areas in these communities where needs are not being met, whether due to pricing, reliability, and/or availability perspectives, but compared to the rest of the county, the situation is much different. Other towns located on the I-35 corridor also have somewhat reasonable options

2 (Final 12/18/2016) for broadband services. However, broadband options reduce dramatically just beyond the city limits of the county’s towns, and throughout almost all of the rural areas of the county – areas that have very very low population densities.

Incumbent providers have plans to improve most areas of Carlton County, but the specifics have not been determined or made available. Both CenturyLink and Frontier will be receiving CAF II funding for Carlton County. One consideration for broadband improvement is a partnership between the county and these providers to assist them in upgrading their networks beyond CAF II requirements and plans. CAF II broadband speed requirements (10/1) are lesser than those of the state grant program.

Moose-Tec provides wireless services within portions of the county, which does benefit hundreds of rural customers, however, the technology of their current systems will soon need to be upgraded, and profitability of the network has remained a challenge. The city of Moose Lake is researching the best path forward for their network.

In addition to the aforementioned projects, the Fond Du Lac tribe is planning for their FTTH network. This network will connect some of the most poorly connected areas, and will be a great improvement for approximately 900 homes in and around the reservation.

While there are improvements planned for service improvement in areas throughout the county, it’s likely that some pockets will remain unserved, and many other still underserved by the state’s definition. Improving the connectivity of those in unserved and underserved areas will be a long- term process that requires creativity, collaboration, and very likely, public funding at the local level.

3 (Final 12/18/2016) Terminology and Background Before we discuss the findings of the study, the following will serve to provide some background (and hopefully clear confusion) regarding some of the terminology used in the industry.

Speeds/Data

 Data is measured in bytes (capital B) – a picture may be 1.5MB – this refers to the size of the picture file  Internet speeds are measured in bits (lower-case b) – a 25Mbps (often shortened to read 25Mb) connection is actually 25 Megabits per second – one byte is made up of 8 bits, so a 25Mb internet connection speed will require 8 seconds to download a 25MB file

Terminology

 Technology traditionally was used to deliver faster download than upload speeds – partially due to technology limitations, and partially due to the consumption vs. creation model the Internet initially took on. If you see 25/3, this refers to a connection that provides 25Mb download and 3Mb upload  Gigabit internet speeds – there’s a lot of discussion around Gigabit or Gb Internet speeds, this refers to connection speeds that are 1,000Mbps  The “G” in 3G, 4G, and 5G cellular or wireless networks is sometimes confused with Gigabit, however, it merely means “Generation”, referring to the iteration of technology. The large carriers are starting to roll out 5G services (5th Generation) which may support 1 Gigabit or more, but these upgrades will be focused on the large metro areas in the foreseeable future.  Wireless providers, and some wireline providers restrict monthly usage (the amount of data sent across their networks), these data caps are somewhere in the range of 6GB for wireless, and maybe 300GB on a wireline network – These are measures of the amount of data, and has no correlation to speeds of connections  Further confusing matters wireless routers may operate using wireless spectrum frequencies in your home at say 2.5 Ghz – this refers only to the frequency of the signal, and doesn’t correlate to any speed

Overview of Project and Service Area Overview of Sponsor Carlton County and the Broadband Steering Committee have been working with the Blandin Foundation as a Blandin Broadband Community on a variety of tech-related topics. A portion of this process is to identify and hopefully work toward better broadband connectivity within Carlton County.

4 (Final 12/18/2016) This broadband feasibility study seeks to identify the state of broadband in the county, identify costs associated with broadband access improvement and seek to help the Steering Committee in next-step decision making and recommendations.

This study covers the entire area of Carlton County, with the full range of diverse areas including towns like Cloquet, Carlton, and Moose Lake, the outlying smaller towns, and the vast rural areas.

Carlton County Census and Demographic Information Carlton County currently has approximately 14,000 establishments which could be potential locations for broadband service needs. 1,500 of these locations are within the boundaries of the Fond Du Lac tribal lands.

Carlton County Resident Age The 2000 census information for Carlton Distribution county shows a generally even distribution Under 19 of age groups. 20‐34 There were 12,064 households out of which 35‐49 32.60% had children under the age of 18 50‐64 living with them, 56.50% were married 65+ couples living together, 9.00% had a 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% female householder with no husband present, and 30.30% were non-families. 26.10% of all households were made up of one individual, and 12.00% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.50 and the average family size was 3.00.

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U of M – Brain Drain/Gain & Carlton County University of Minnesota Extension Center for Community Vitality’s Senior Research Fellow Benjamin Winchester talks about the “Brain Gain” in rural Minnesota. He seeks to provide some clarity on the “Brain Drain” we’ve been hearing about in rural areas.

6 (Final 12/18/2016) High school graduates might leave rural areas for college and jobs in the big city, but more are coming back with college degrees, careers, professional contacts, and young families. Still others with these credentials are moving to rural communities for the first time. - U of M Extension Web Site

One reason for the perceived brain drain is the changing categorization of some moderately highly-populated rural areas (think the counties surrounding the Minneapolis St. Paul metro area) – as these areas lose their designation as rural, it makes the overall populations in the new “rural” areas look worse than they may actually be, all things being equal.

Another observation Mr. Winchester discusses is that their research suggests families aged 30-39 are moving back to rural areas for a higher quality of life. While their research does not look at the drawing power of broadband availability, they’ve seen anecdotal evidence that these things matter.

In their research report they cite that the typical family that is moving back to a rural area is well- educated. It’s very likely that these folks who are moving back are using broadband in their decision-making process.

The UofM website puts it this way:

High school graduates might leave rural areas for college and jobs in the big city, but more are coming back with college degrees, careers, professional contacts, and young families. Still others with these credentials are moving to rural communities for the first time. Extension's demographic research, publications, and perspectives on this brain gain can help community leaders consider what this means for their rural area.

These slides, courtesy of Mr. Winchester show the outflows and inflows of residents based on age:

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Another item of note is that in the recent years, Carlton County has seen an increase in the number of nonprofits, and the assets of those nonprofits have increased almost twofold between 2000 and 2010, showing a vibrant social life in the county.

Why Broadband Isn’t Ubiquitous – Provider Classification While the cost of deployment is by far the largest reason for the lack of broadband in rural areas, costs can vary wildly depending on the scope of the area served (anywhere from $3,000/location to $25,000+ in some cases). The following are some perspectives to consider in understanding why some areas have not been improved or upgraded. It also serves to provide some background on the types of providers and categorizes them with their unique situations.

Price-Cap Carriers Publicly traded commercial telephone companies (the big operators like CenturyLink, Frontier, etc.) are referred to as Price-Cap Carriers due to how they are regulated. Price-Cap Carriers are motivated as corporations to provide the best return possible for their shareholders. Unfortunately for more rural areas such as those in Carlton County, the best returns are achieved by leveraging their investments in more densely populated areas. While these providers are regulated by the FCC and the PUC, specific broadband requirements have not been established like they have been on traditional voice (dial tone) services. Whereas carriers are mandated to connect all homes in their

8 (Final 12/18/2016) serving areas where they are the Carrier of Last Resort, and held responsible for timely repairs, broadband has not seen this level of regulation.

From the FCC modernization order – 3/2016

- Increases consumer choice by providing support for standalone broadband - Encourages investment in areas lacking broadband deployment by providing greater capital expenditure allowances for carriers with below average deployment, and limiting allowable investments for those with above average deployment - Requires broadband deployment, based on number of locations lacking service, the cost of providing service, and support to be

The recent FCC modernization order changes how both Price-Cap Carriers and Rate-of-Return Carriers are regulated when it comes to stand-alone broadband and funding broadband expansion for high-cost areas. Price-Cap Carriers have recently been given the option for CAF II (Connect America Fund – Phase II) money to improve their networks to at least 10/1 – this was a voluntary option, and not all carriers took the funding due to the capital requirements of the program. Further, the funding that this program provides can be inadequate to pay for construction of these networks. For example, CenturyLink is receiving $471/upgraded customer/year for the next 6 years, and Frontier will receive an average of $587/customer for the next 6 years. While these dollars will improve access to many residents, the challenge is that the dollar amounts may not cover the costs in the areas that are in the most remote parts of their areas served. Additionally, with the 10/1 speed requirements, these carriers will generally still use copper twisted-pair to serve many of these customers. New technologies will improve the speeds available over traditional copper plants, unfortunately the distance limitation of these services severely hinders the speeds available to customers “at the end of the road.” Further, as technology increases the bandwidth of these mediums, so too do the demands of services delivered over the network increase with the further adoption of richer media experiences like 4K TV, remote healthcare, virtual reality applications and more.

Carriers receiving CAF II support must build out broadband to 40% of funded locations by the end 2017, 60% by end of 2018, and 100% by the end of 2020. Overall, the FCC’s Universal Service Fund allocates $4.5 billion annually through various universal service programs for high-cost areas to support voice- and broadband-capable networks in rural America.

CenturyLink is the largest Price-Cap Carrier in the county serving over 90% of all locations and over 54% of the land area. Frontier, also a Price-Cap Carrier, serves the rest of the county (under 10% of all locations and just over 46% of land area).

9 (Final 12/18/2016) This map identifies the areas where Price-Cap Carriers have accepted CAF II support within Carlton County to upgrade their networks over the next six years.

The following table identifies the level of annual CAF II funding for accepted areas in Carlton County, as well as all of Minnesota for reference:

Carlton MN Carrier Locations Carlton $ Locations MN $ CenturyLink 3,366 $1,158,278 114,739 $54,035,149 Frontier Communications 1,694 $1,039,407 46,910 $27,551,367 Total 5,062 $2,200,810 161,649 $ 81,586,516

The offer of CAF II model-based support was targeted to Price-Cap areas that are high-cost, but not extremely high-cost. An area was classified as “eligible” if the average monthly cost-per- location for that census block, as calculated by the Connect America Cost Model (CAM) (version 4.3), was above a $52.50 funding benchmark but below a $198.60 extremely high cost threshold, and not served by an unsubsidized competitor, subsidized wireline competitor, or was not subject to specific types of bids in the Rural Broadband Experiments. Eligible areas where a Price-Cap Carrier accepted CAF II funding are shown in bright green on the map. Declined funding will be made available at a future date through a competitive bidding process.

Empty areas in the map above with no color fall into one of the following categories:

10 (Final 12/18/2016)  areas declined by Price-Cap Carriers;  areas where the average monthly cost-per-location is above $52.50 but below $198.60, but the area was deemed served by an unsubsidized competitor, a subsidized wireline competitor, or was removed from the offer to price cap carriers due to the Rural Broadband Experiments;  areas where the average monthly cost-per-location was calculated by version 4.3 of the CAM as above $198.60; and/or  areas reported as uninhabited. Rate of Return Carriers Smaller, privately-held, or cooperative telecom providers, referred to as Rate-of-Return Carriers are regulated to provide services to their customers with ubiquitous coverage in their exchanges as well as repair requirements. These companies are guaranteed a specific rate-of-return for their investments in providing service in their areas. While these smaller providers generally have more interest in building networks to improve networks adjacent to their areas, they are unfortunately challenged to do so due to the way their companies earn revenue through the Universal Service Fund (“USF”). In many cases, when a Rate-of-Return Carrier makes investments into areas beyond its exchange territory, these costs actually lessen the support they receive through the USF by more than the revenue opportunity available from serving the new customers.

There are no Rate-of-Return Carriers operating in Carlton County.

Mobile Wireless Providers The national wireless companies provide coverage in most areas of the state. Unfortunately, they also focus their efforts in areas which are at least moderately populated which can leave some rural areas with limited coverage. New LTE technologies allow faster speeds, however, the distance these radio frequency signals effectively propagate is reduced, thus often leaving the rural areas with little relief as new technologies are deployed. Spectrum availability is also a limiting factor as this finite resource is more heavily used. Terrain can affect availability, reliability, and available speeds. Additionally, the data caps that most mobile wireless carriers include with their plans generally limit monthly usage of rich media experiences. A single standard definition video stream from Netflix requires about 1 GB per hour, and a high definition stream roughly 3 GB per hour. Under a service with a data cap, Netflix and other video services become cost prohibitive for anything more than a few hours of viewing per month.

Nationwide providers include Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile (as well as the Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) who operate using the networks of these providers, think Tracfone, Jitterbug etc.)

Fixed Wireless Providers Fixed Wireless Providers, often called Wireless Internet Service Providers, or WISPs serve customers’ residence or business with a fixed, i.e. non-mobile, wireless solution. Many of the mobile wireless challenges also affect the fixed wireless providers. A clear line-of-site is generally required for acceptable service. Carlton County’s terrain is not ideal for wireless services –

11 (Final 12/18/2016) elevation changes and trees make wireless services spotty, and generally more costly than areas with flat, open terrain types. Typically fixed wireless providers do impose data caps on customers.

Compudyne from Duluth purchased Superior Broadband, a fixed, line-of-sight wireless provider. They now operate this network which reaches to Cloquet, Carlton, and Esko with speeds up to 20/20. This service is primarily offered to business customers. They did not mention plans for expansion of their services into new areas. Moose-Tec, owned/operated by the City of Moose Lake, is another common wireless provider throughout the county.

New advances in technology and equipment, referred to as 5G, hold promise in delivering greater speeds for fixed wireless providers in the near future, however, distance limitations will hinder rural deployment benefits.

Cable TV Providers Cable TV providers traditionally use a system of fiber optic links feeding a network of coaxial cables to serve customers, and most operators have upgraded from Analog to Digital systems to increase bandwidth and offer more TV channels. Upgraded digital systems using the DOCSIS 3.0 standard can provide nearly 1 Gbps, and the newer DOCSIS 3.1 standard will improve upon that.

Cable TV networks do not extend very far from populated areas – typically cable providers tend to provide their services in areas where there are somewhere around 20 home per mile (less in small communities), but rural areas with less than 10 homes per square mile are very rarely served by cable companies. The economic model for Cable TV breaks down in low density areas. For reference, Clear Creek Township has only 3.44 home per square mile.

In the past several years the rate of Cable TV company consolidation has increased as the future economics of these businesses become less certain. This industry consolidation will likely further lessen the probability of Cable TV providers serving rural areas.

Mediacom and SCI Broadband are the two traditional Cable TV providers in Carlton County, however, other providers do offer video services within the county. While Mediacom and SCI provide fairly robust services within the city-limits of the largest towns within the county, these services generally don’t extend beyond the city limits - primarily because of the previously mentioned lack of density. Both Mediacom and SCI have indicated potential interest in a partnership with the county to extend their services in unserved areas.

Recently, Mediacom has announced plans to upgrade all of their systems to the new DOCSIS 3.1 technology which will allow for Gigabit speeds. It’s unclear as to the speeds and packages that Mediacom will actually make available for consumers, but it’s likely that they will increase their offerings for customers.

Satellite ISPs Satellite-delivered broadband services are available from a variety of providers including Exede, HughesNet, Dish Network Internet, etc. These services can be delivered in most areas of the United States. While speeds can be adequate for light usage they do not meet the FCC speed requirements for the definition of broadband, and generally come with monthly data cap

12 (Final 12/18/2016) limitations which deter customers from using excessive amounts of data. Unfortunately, these caps all but restrict the use of streaming video. Moreover, the lag due to the satellite transmission can limit the usage of the service to general web surfing, as VoIP (Voice over IP) phone services generally require low latency for comfortable conversation.

Incumbent Broadband Providers The following maps identify the existing wireline providers’ serving areas. Wireless provider coverage is available from several providers in the county, however, specific coverage maps were not available.

Similarly, since cable companies like Mediacom aren’t regulated, their coverage maps are not generally publicized, but typically they are required by franchise to cover all areas within the municipal boundaries in which they operate. Their build-out decisions can vary on a variety of things, but density is the greatest factor, and generally cable companies won’t build to areas with less than 20 homes per mile. In addition, franchise agreements cover video services only, with no requirements on broadband services.

This map shows the ILEC (Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier) exchange names, boundaries, and provider for the regulated telecom providers in Carlton County.

13 (Final 12/18/2016) In addition to the ILEC providers (CenturyLink and Frontier), cable operators Mediacom and SCI also provide wireline broadband service within Carlton County. The following table summarizes the estimated quantity of locations passed and land area served by each of the wireline providers:

% County Land Area % County Land Locations Passed Locations Passed Covered (mi2) Area Covered CenturyLink 12,861 90.29% 467.36 mi2 54.26% Frontier 1,383 9.71% 407.92 mi2 47.36% County Total 14,244 100.00% 875.28 mi2 100.00%

Mediacom* 3,552 24.94% 28.63 mi2 3.32% SCI* 316 2.22% 1.00 mi2 0.12% Note: Mediacom and SCI locations and coverage areas overlap with portions of CenturyLink locations and areas.

Representatives from Frontier and Mediacom participated in meetings with Carlton County EDA during this study, with positive discussion on potentially partnering to improve broadband within certain areas of the county. These discussions will continue in 2017 as both parties indicate they open to working with Carlton County.

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The map above shows the FCC listed wireless tower locations throughout Carlton County. Also shown are the Moose-Tec antenna sites within the County. There are additional towers that exist within the county, however, these are shorter structures that do not require FCC registration. Like many of the Moose-Tec sites, these non- registered towers might be ham radio towers, small mono pole towers, or wood poles, as well as other structures such as water towers, grain legs, silos, and church steeples as wireless antenna locations. While these structures can work for wireless deployments, there are numerous challenges in using them to offer a reliable and quality service, including: lack of height, lack of safety features, lack of fiber-optic backbone connectivity, and others. These structures can save money in a wireless deployment, although they are far from ideal.

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The map above depicts the existing fiber inventory within Carlton County. These are transport network fiber routes that run through the county, typically used to connect communication company providers to large customers, to other carriers, and often wireless backhaul traffic. The information shown was either supplied by the provider or taken from publically available sources. Other providers did not disclose fiber route information, and because there was no publically available data the map is not complete. Of particular note, representatives from NESC met with Carlton County EDA during this study, and confirmed NESC’s willingness to partner with the county and/or other providers as part of a solution.

16 (Final 12/18/2016) Community feedback CNS took several approaches to learning about first-hand broadband experiences by using both phone interviews as well as a social media delivered survey. We visited with stakeholders from a variety of industries to get feedback regarding personal and business broadband experiences. The social media outreach program sought to get county residents and workers’ feedback on a wider scale as well as obtain anecdotal evidence of personal experiences.

Community Anchor Interviews CNS met with a variety of community stakeholders to understand if/to what extent residents and businesses are being affected by the level of broadband service in Carlton County.

Education When addressing educational broadband needs, there are generally three categories: K12 and early childhood, post-secondary and independent learners/work skill training.

Carlton County’s K12 institutions are well equipped with the bandwidth necessary to accommodate the increasing use of tablets and web based learning. Several of the Carlton County Schools shared their experiences, and all were positive regarding the connectivity they get from NESC.

The schools we talked to either have fully implemented a 1 to 1 tablet program, or are in initial phases of the project. One to one programs include providing each student their own school- issued tablet PC device. These tablet programs also include a learning management system which allows students and teachers a place to collaborate on their education. These new solutions are much more effective when students have quality broadband both at school and at home.

One of the challenges several schools cited was the challenge of accommodating the students who

“It’s difficult to accommodate the students who have don’t have Internet services at home – the lack of broadband in some areas really affects all students.” - Gwen Carman, Carlton School Superintendent don’t have Internet services at home – the lack of broadband at home likely changes some of the potential benefits new technology. One example includes the ability for students to more creatively illustrate their learning of new concepts through non-traditional means like through a video or app created based on their new knowledge – these become much harder for those who do not have a broadband connection at home.

Many of the schools leverage the NESC fiber for wireless connectivity in the classrooms – this seems to work well.

The libraries see consistent use of their facilities both on their computers and from patrons using their own devices. They estimate that a fair amount of their usage is from folks who do not have

17 (Final 12/18/2016) connections at home and are using the library’s computers, or their wi-fi for their own devices – some in the parking lot or in the entryway of the library during after-hours times.

Healthcare The healthcare industry is changing rapidly. The Internet of Things has become an increasing focus for providers. Patient monitoring, IV pumps, instant/automated medicine dispersing machines, and telehealth services are increasingly becoming new realities, requiring robust connectivity for healthcare providers, as well as moderate needs for remote patients.

With the advent of the federal requirements regarding electronic health records, large healthcare organizations are finding ways to consolidate and secure their data. The most onerous burden for electronic records tends to fall on the smaller providers, like private practitioners, chiropractors, dentists, etc. And these are the offices in Carlton County that most suffer from lack of affordable, robust connections to the Internet, not only for the purpose of retaining and retrieving medical records, but for a growing desire to connect with their patients at home.

Healthcare focus is changing from curing you when you are sick to keeping you well. These providers have much to offer their constituents/patients but the problem is that the constituents can’t tap it without broadband connections. In addition, recruitment of medical professionals in the rural parts of the county is irrevocably tied to the availability or the lack of broadband.

It is practically impossible in rural Minnesota to find a pharmacy in a small town or after normal business hours in the small cities lucky enough to retain a drug store. An Insty-med vending machine for the most commonly prescribed drugs for common ailments like ear or sinus infections can bridge this gap, however, broadband can play a big role by using telemedicine services, patients can be seen virtually, then the physician provides a prescription with a vending code, the patient uses a debit or credit card to access the right item and the machine dispenses it.

While Carlton’s healthcare providers appear reluctant to provide input for this study, we know there are improvements that can come from better broadband for rural dwellers to take advantage of these new technologies.

Business Business retention and growth is paramount for communities like Carlton County to survive and ultimately grow. With Carlton’s adjacency to Duluth, there are opportunities for both retention and growth assuming businesses can function properly in the county.

In talking with the Economic Development leaders for the county and the cities of Moose Lake and Cloquet, as well as evaluating the survey response data, there appears to be discrepancies in what the existing providers suggest is available and what businesses actually perceive they are receiving in terms of speed, price, and reliability.

In Cloquet, both CenturyLink and Mediacom suggest that they offer adequate speeds which are now available as well the willingness to install fiber drops if businesses pay for a portion of the

18 (Final 12/18/2016) construction costs. However, business customers suggest that current speed options are not as good as the providers suggest, and that real-world usage of these services has proven to be lackluster. Further, businesses suggest that the quoted amounts for fiber construction they’ve seen from the incumbent providers are too costly for their business to afford.

Compudyne offers a fairly robust B2B fixed wireless service which does allow for a third option, however, for businesses with high-bandwidth needs, wireless is not the strategy for a long-term solution.

It’s important to note that perception plays into the opinions of both the providers and the customers in the feedback that is provided. Since many of the county’s businesses are small businesses, it appears that the perceived value of the services are substantially less than the providers charge for these services. Our research indicates that the prices quoted for monthly service are generally in line with the industry averages for these types of high-bandwidth services, but for small businesses who are not accustomed to these costs, they can appear incredibly expensive.

CTC (Brainerd) has said that they are very interested in assisting with builds to underserved businesses. While it’s not clear on the type of arrangement that would be required to make this happen, it is worth discussing options with them, or other providers who might be interested in leveraging the NESC backbone to provide end-user services. While this solution may not be as simple or streamlined as having incumbent providers expand, it’s likely a good path if the new provider and business customer can agree on mutually beneficial terms.

Carlton County Power Companies Only a few rural power companies have gotten into the broadband service delivery business in the country. This trend may be slowly changing as some rural coop providers look to not only help their members, but also to potentially create a network that can be used internally for future smart grid deployments.

Some power company projects have proven successful, and others face some big challenges. When researching these projects, be sure to clearly evaluate the funding sources used to construct these networks. Several included federal stimulus dollars, which are currently not available. Further, some of these projects were undertaken at a time when there were fewer options from incumbent telephone and cable providers – while some of these projects may be successful, there are many factors to consider.

The position of the power companies is that of understanding the needs, and sympathetic to their members’ challenges, and even willing to potentially help, unfortunately the costs are a big concern for these companies.

We were only able to speak with East Central Electric, but their feedback mirrors the response we’ve gotten from other power coops throughout the state. They are also taking a wait-and-see approach to understand to what extent the CAF II projects will improve connectivity in the county.

19 (Final 12/18/2016) ECE’s internal needs are being met with their 900Mhz SCADA system for remote monitoring and control of the power distribution network.

One of the ways some power companies have been considering to help is through potential partnerships with other power companies, or partnerships with communication coops. One of the challenges in partnering with the communication providers is the partial overlap of the serving areas of both providers (see map below)– unfortunately the boundaries rarely align which requires creative thinking to get past the investment requirements which may only benefit a portion of a power coops’ member base.

One of the ways that electric providers can more efficiently build FTTH networks is by either constructing fiber lines on their power distribution poles themselves, or allowing another entity to use their poles. Typically, third-parties charge “pole attachment fees” for providers who want to hang fiber-optic lines on the existing poles.

Using power distribution poles comes with its own set of challenges – primarily due to the height of the poles, and the height of the power wires on the poles. If communication technicians will be allowed to work on the network, the communication lines need to be located within the “safety zone” (typically 40” below the lowest energized wire) on the pole – this distance requirement proves problematic for power poles that are short – if the power pole is too short to allow for adequate clearance under the communication wires, costs increase rapidly as poles need to be changed to make the infrastructure ready for the communication lines – referred to as “make ready costs.” Communication lines can be run within the supply space of the poles, or the “power zone”, but any technician working on the communication lines must be certified and have the proper protective equipment to work close to live power lines.

Google mentions that on their projects where aerial lines are used, that they have implemented a “climb once” process, where any make-ready requirements are completed at the same time the fiber is attached – they suggest this is a time and cost saver.

If the county or other entity wanted to entertain partnering with the power companies, and there was interest in aerial installations, one of the pieces a power company could bring to the table is creative use of pole attachments – both the process, and costs.

Both Lake Country Power and East Central Electric offer Exede satellite Internet service to their members. Exede Internet services are sufficient for light Internet use, however, as with nearly all satellite Internet providers, data caps can prove to be problematic for households interested in using the services for entertainment. Unfortunately, for businesses users, the increased latency caused by data transmission to space and back, make VoIP phone and video calls problematic.

Currently many of the power companies’ offices and larger substations are connected via fiber from Great River Energy – this network is used for monitoring and load control, with capacity insufficient to support retail Internet subscribers. Power companies’ SCADA systems allow for network management and load control, and will become increasingly sophisticated, however, many power companies don’t suggest urgency for FTTH networks to help in accessing data from

20 (Final 12/18/2016) each subscriber – largely because the amount of data transmission and speeds required are quite small at this time.

The above map shows the power company providers shaded purple and green, and the telephone exchange boundaries outlined in yellow.

Social Media Research/Survey Outreach Results Using a facebook page with paid ads as well as twitter promoted tweets and LinkedIn ads, we directed social media users to provide feedback on their Internet experiences in the county with the help of the Survey Monkey tool. In a few short weeks, approximately 1,000 folks provided their feedback on their experiences in Carlton County. The Facebook page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/Carlton-County-Internet-Services-Survey-760381177398074/

The survey can be found at https://www.CarltonInternet.com The Carlton County offices made public PCs available for residents to complete the survey if they didn’t have access to their own connections, as well as the libraries in the county. Many of the responses came from mobile devices.

21 (Final 12/18/2016)

As a result of the social outreach campaign, KBJR NEWS ran a story about the availability of the survey for residents to voice their feedback. http://www.northlandsnewscenter.com/news/local/Carlton-County-seeking-public-input-for- internet-needs-392662841.html

The Pine Journal also wrote an article on the survey and the overall Blandin Broadband Community project: http://www.pinejournal.com/news/4110532-lack-internet-service-adversely-affecting- carlton-county

22 (Final 12/18/2016)

Additionally, WKLK radio mentioned the survey on the air and was responsible for at least one survey submission.

While the survey is continuing to allow new responses, this feasibility report shows a summary of the data through the end of September 2016.

It includes:

 980 total valid responses  83 responses for work-at-home users  427 responses from folks who live and work in Carlton county

While this survey is not statistically relevant due to the non-random nature of online administration, it does provide anecdotal evidence revealing some consistent trends. The response size of 414 is near that of the number required for a statistically relevant sample, however, without a random mixture of respondents, the results are likely skewed. The survey asks a variety of questions about the speed and reliability of residents’ Internet connections as well as some addition data.

Since Frontier and Centurylink cover the largest geographic area, and Mediacom covers the dense areas of the county, the responses largely represent those three providers.

General Overview The following graphs show the survey response data. Please note that we’ve omitted responses with less than 10 responses in most cases.

23 (Final 12/18/2016) If Carlton County chose to provide financial support to improve Internet services within Carlton County, please rate your level of support: 100.00% 568 600

80.00% 79% 500 400 60.00% 300 % of responses 40.00% 121 200 18 10 Count of responses 20.00% 100 3% 1% 17% 0.00% 0 Totally Opposed Not Supportive Somewhat Very supportive supportive

If a new Internet service was available with significantly faster speeds, how likely would you be to switch to that new service (assuming it was priced reasonably)? 600

500

400

300 Total 200

100

0 I probably wouldn't switch Maybe, I'm not sure it I'd probably switch, it Very likely, faster Internet would be worth it would be helpful would have a major impact

24 (Final 12/18/2016)

Residential Who is your Internet provider? 120

100

80

60

40 Total 20

0 SCI Frontier MooseTec Mediacom CenturyLink

AT&T or Verizon

I could use it to access ALL of the Internet, not just part of it.

- Social media open-ended response (on new opportunities broadband would afford businesses in Carlton County)

25 (Final 12/18/2016) Who is your Internet provider (written in) 25

20

15

10

5 Total

0

How satisfied are you with the current speed of Internet at your home? 90.00% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% Total Satisfied Satisfied Satisfied Satisfied Satisfied Satisfied Satisfied Satisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Unsatisfied Very Satisfied Very Satisfied Very Satisfied Very unsatisfied Very unsatisfied Very unsatisfied Very unsatisfied Very unsatisfied Very unsatisfied Very unsatisfied Very unsatisfied Very unsatisfied AT&T CenturyLink Cooperative Dish Exede Frontier Hughes net Mediacom Moose Tec SCI or Light and Net Verizon Power

26 (Final 12/18/2016)

Those citing “other” left comments pertaining largely to “not getting the speed I pay for”, “unreliable,” and “both too expensive and slow”

What is the speed of your home Internet connection? (very low responses excluded) 35

30

25

20

15 Total 10

5

0 20 20 20 20 1‐5 1‐5 1‐5 1‐5 1‐5 1‐5 6‐10 6‐10 6‐10 6‐10 6‐10 6‐10 16‐20 11‐15 16‐20 11‐15 11‐15 11‐15 16‐20 11‐15 CenturyLink Exede Frontier Hughes Mediacom Moose SCI net Tec

27 (Final 12/18/2016) How reliable is your home Internet? 20 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0

Total Comments Comments Comments It works about 25% of… It works about 50% of… It works about 75% of… It works about 25% of… It works about 50% of… It works about 75% of… It works about 50% of… It works about 75% of… It works about 25% of… It works about 50% of… It works about 75% of… It works about 25% of… It works about 50% of… It works about 75% of… It works about 75% of… It doesn't work nearly all… It doesn't work nearly all… It doesn't work nearly all… It works nearly all the time It works nearly all the time It works nearly all the time It works nearly all the time It works nearly all the time CenturyLink Exede Frontier Hughes Mediacom Moose Tec CLP net

Interesting to note is that only 27 respondents said that high speed Internet was not available at their homes, while this was an Internet-delivered survey, many folks access the Internet each day through a variety of ways that don’t require home connections including work, school, and on mobile devices.

Since much of the sharing of the survey was done via social media channels, this lends itself largely to mobile devices as many social media users, do so on mobile devices. 19 of the respondents reported using mobile data plans as their home Internet source.

28 (Final 12/18/2016) How much do you spend each month? 50 45 40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Total Less than $30 per… $190 + per month $190 + per month $190 + per month $51‐80 per month $51‐80 per month $51‐80 per month $31 ‐50 per month $31 ‐50 per month $31 ‐50 per month $81‐110 per month $81‐110 per month $81‐110 per month $111‐ 130 per month $111‐ 130 per month $151‐ 170 per month $111‐ 130 per month $151‐ 170 per month $131 ‐ 150 per month $171 ‐ 190 per month $131 ‐ 150 per month $171 ‐ 190 per month No, I buy Internet only Yes, Phone & Internet Yes, TV & Internet Yes, TV, Internet & Phone

Are you familiar with Fiber‐optic networks 25

20

15

10

5 Total 0

Business 128 respondents answered questions about their business’ Internet connectivity. The following is an overview:

 8 said there was no Internet available  35 of those who do have Internet services, said it is inadequate  The business pricing varies widely with no discernable trend  83 of the responses indicate those who work from home

29 (Final 12/18/2016)

Count of How satisfied are you with the current speed of Internet to your BUSINESS? 70

60

50

40

Total 30

20

10

0 Very Satisfied Satisfied Unsatisfied Very unsatisfied

Who provides your Business Provider 60

50

40

30

20 Total 10

0 SCI CLP FDL MN State… NESC AT&T… Sprint Exede School Moose… MN Tel. Century… Nextera Frontier Satellite Mediacom Hughes net Compudyne

Carlton County

30 (Final 12/18/2016)

Do you have adequate Internet speeds available today for your BUSINESS or home based business? 80 70 60 50 40 Total 30 20 10 0 N/A No Yes

Do you operate your business out of your home, if so, how satisfied are you? 60

50

40

30

Total 20

10

0 Very Satisfied Unsatisfied Very Very Satisfied Unsatisfied Very Satisfied unsatisfied Satisfied unsatisfied No Yes

31 (Final 12/18/2016)

If you operate your business from your home, how reliable is your Internet service? 100 90 80 70 60 50 Total 40 30 20 10 0 It doesn't work It works 25% of the it works 50% of the It works 75% of the It works nearly all nearly all the time time time time the time

Why aren't you satisfied with your Business Internet Service? 70

60

50

40

30 Total 20

10

0 It's too expensive Other (please specify) The connection speed There are business isn't fast enough opportunities that I miss out on because of the Internet Service

Open responses for:

If Carlton County had a faster Internet service available, what opportunities would that open up for your business to provide new products or services or reach new customers? Would it impact any opportunities for your family?

32 (Final 12/18/2016)  It would make it easier to market our business because we could use more photos and video content. Currently it takes too long to load large files, especially video, so my spouse has to do it from her work in Duluth. Other collaborative tools such as webinars would also become available in a way they are not now, allowing me to take advantage of continuing education opportunities that will help my business grow and adapt.  I could have an office in my home or in Carlton or Cloquet instead of driving to my office in Duluth. My publishing companies could be much more efficient because I would be spending less time waiting for my computer uploads/downloads, and I would be able to get more done. My family would be able to use their devices for fun and education without the squabbling over who's using all the band width! Happier wife and kids!  Yes video conferencing would be possible  Yes of course , I have customers tell Me all the time I can't hear you This is pathetic being just 17 miles from Duluth  We would be able to bid more jobs as well as grow our company and keep more jobs in the county. We cannot even share files over vpn  More productivity at work  Streamline backups and voice/video services.  Improve efficiency  Carlton County needs to invest in this area to try and catch up with other parts of the state. It will attract businesses and help keep the people you have in the county. Another question that should be asked is will this help you continue to live in this county, and the answer is yes.  I would be able to process more work which would resolve more people's problems.  Being able to perform better for students.  We would be able to work on building our new website and other advertising. My husband wouldn't lose school credit due to not being able to get online too e-mail teachers and submit assignments.  All above would be addressed! Please make it happen!  Time reduced to conduct business means higher productivity. This spurs the opportunities for higher profit.  It would be a great improvement to customer service for me! We are not able to use our Roku streaming stick without a lot of patience. Movie starts then stops to load . Frustrating!!  It would make performing my job a lot easier, and without having to relocate if the internet isn't performing to satisfaction.  It would because I could get more done  E bay sales could open up. Currently the service is too unreliable for business sales.  I would be able to work less hours, I have to make up my time lost due to my current Internet down time. It would be nice to work 8 hours a day. Currently I put in an average 10 to 12. I may also be promoted, that has been mentioned several times, which means more money for our family.  It would make our everyday work lives, and leisure time much more enjoyable and less stressful.

33 (Final 12/18/2016)  I would be able to put down permanent roots here. Otherwise i may have to move.  Yes  Faster Internet would allow Carlton County to attract new businesses that are Internet based. This is clean industry that could benefit Carlton County immensely.  Dramatic increase in income  be able toget product out there  I would be able to increase my online business which would impact my income and provide better financial opportunities for my family  Faster service better turn around.  Yes it would let us get work done faster and have more free time  I would be able to stream movies with my family. I would be able to complete the online work for my business and personal life with far more ease and less stress!!  Almost all information now requires internet access; especially of concern to us is communication with our physician since we have some very worrisome medical concerns and often need copies of medical tests. Currently our business customers call or text on the cell phones.  It would open up more opportunities to market my business and allow me to use my time more efficiently.  My daughter attends barnum high school and almost all her assignments,have to be completed online. She can not use the Internet until I am done,with work which may be late as we can have us both using the Internet at the same time.  Yes  It would be a huge impact. We would save money, argue less, feel less stress, get more work done, etc. We have more arguments about the internet not working.  I may work solely from Home. Leaving less of an environmental footprint not commuting  I would be more productive.  I could work from home more. Improve the quality of life  Yes we could have our company pay for our internet to work from home. That is a financial need.  I need answers about local products, services and locations. It would be great to have better and faster connections.  Could effectively telecommute and access information highway  Yes  Fast and reliable is needed.  My son would be able to use a computer to do his homework. I would consider opening another home-based business.  It would open up a great deal of options for me.  I would be able to work from home more vs driving 45 minutes each was to go to my office.

34 (Final 12/18/2016)

Competition When looking into improving broadband in any area, a close look at current and future competition is paramount. While residents may complain about their current provider, they may not be as apt to switch to a new provider as one might think. There are many nuances to rationale customers use to decide which services they value enough to pay for. The best network with competitive prices will always have potential customers who do not sign up for one reason or another – something as simple as change itself may slow customers’ decision process.

A clear understanding of future competition is also key – wireless providers currently restrict usage with data caps. While it’s unlikely for several years, it’s possible in some areas that the large carriers will offer unlimited data if they were to get dark fiber connectivity to WiFi hotspots or small cells. Programs like the Connect America Fund (CAFII) serve to incent Price-Cap Carriers to build to more homes in the coming years – while the speed requirements are currently modest at 10/1, these improvements may be seen as “good enough” for some customers, and thus either stop them from switching or delay their decision for several years.

Often customers will cite the lack of competition as a driver for high costs or lack of cutting-edge services. While this may be true in populated areas, the rural areas can actually be hurt by competition. In some areas there simply aren’t enough customers for multiple providers to generate the revenue required to maintain, much less construct high-quality networks.

Mediacom Speed Price GB Data Cap 3/512 29.95 150 15/1 44.95 250 50/5 49.95 350 100/10 54.99 1000 150/20 64.99 2000 Modem lease $7.50/mo Professional install $60 ** These speeds will likely increase in 2017 with Mediacom’s announced technology enhancements.

Frontier Speed Price 6/1 34.99 12/1 44.99 12/2 49.99 24/1 54.99 $49 installation

35 (Final 12/18/2016)

Centurylink Speed Price 7 44 12 54 Modem lease $9.99, Install $20‐$99

SCI ‐ Barnum Price 1.5 34.95 12 49.95 Free install, wireless ‐ $5.95/mo

Dish Network Speed Price 10/5 10GB cap 49.95 $99 install

Mobile Hot Spots (Verizon/AT&T) Varies depending on wireless coverage of Data is shared between the area – some portions of the county mobile and hotspot device have poor reception, and have no plan. coverage, or slow speeds via hot spots.

Target Market for a new ISP While we don’t recommend that the county build and operate a new network, it is worthwhile to understand how a new solution would have to position itself for success.

When we think of Internet users, we probably picture someone using a PC or tablet computer at their home. While this is a large market in terms of the total population, many new potential customers for Internet service exist and are growing rapidly. New technologies now either prefer or demand Internet service in areas that in the past or even today isn’t even considered. The future Internet of Things will provide great benefits residents and businesses by connecting machines like wind turbines, irrigations systems, agricultural facilities, stop lights, remote monitoring systems, grain bins, etc. The list will continue to grow rapidly.

Special Access Circuits are another product that can be sold to business customers. A special circuit is one that likely isn’t even connected to the Internet, but to another network. Think of wireless communication towers, or branch offices who connect to a headquarters office for file sharing, intranet network activities, phone systems and more.

36 (Final 12/18/2016) While none of the aforementioned needs will materialize into sizable revenue opportunities soon, either because some of the needs are already met by a current provider, or the technology hasn’t become mainstream yet, the needs are growing and will continue to as technology changes. They are pieces of the puzzle to consider when thinking about the economics of new communications network.

Technology Review While no single technology is best in all areas, below we will discuss the pros and cons of various broadband delivery technologies.

Most consumers are confused about Internet delivery technologies, the reasons for their uses in certain areas, and the benefits and drawbacks each technology might have. Consumers are concerned about the end result – reliability, speed, price. No one technology is necessarily better than the rest. Each technology has strengths/weaknesses, serves a purpose, each has its place in delivering bits of data.

DSL As dial-up Internet became mainstream, a new/faster technology was launched to utilize phone lines for an “always-on” high speed connection. A Digital Subscriber Line or DSL connection, uses the existing twisted pair copper wires of your phone line to deliver high speed internet access. While DSL speeds are generally slower than fiber or cable service, it is a very common technology deployed in rural areas. Because existing copper cables are leveraged to deliver DSL services, the deployment costs are much less than plowing new cable facilities. DSL’s bandwidth is limited by the distance of the copper twisted-pair telephone lines. The shorter the length of copper lines to a customer, the higher the speed that may be delivered. In rural areas where homes are relatively far apart, and copper lines are multiple miles in length, bandwidth delivered may be severely constrained. DSL is almost always used in conjunction with fiber-optic backbone networks. Typically, rural DSL customers are connected to a DSLAM (Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer) at a remote communications cabinet (likely in a road ditch) or at the Central Office within several miles of their homes. Fiber connects remote DSLAM’s to the ISP’s Central Office.

The following chart illustrates the speeds and distance limitations of several DSL flavors.

37 (Final 12/18/2016) DSL speed/distance by DSL flavor

100 100

90

80

70

60

50 52 43 40

30 30 25 25 20 20 16 18 16 10 12 11 15 7 9 7 7 6 3 1.5 0 5 000 0 0 Kft 1 kft 3 Kft 5 Kft 7 kft 9 kft 12 kft 18 kft

ADSL2+ ADSL2+ VDSL VDSL2+

One of the newest DSL technologies is G.FAST. This supports speeds up to 1 Gigabit, however, this is for only very short distances. While 1 Gb is achievable within several hundred feet, the speeds drop to about 350Mb at 1/5 of a mile and at 4/10s of a mile the speeds are nearly zero. Again, this technology has its place – in a dense area with short copper loops, the speeds are very usable, however, they aren’t likely to solve rural broadband challenges as many rural driveways can be over 1/5th of a mile (1,000 feet).

While the speeds illustrated here are best-case scenarios, actual speeds will almost always be less due to a number of conditions: age and condition of the copper cables, the thickness (gauge) of the copper wire used, the size of the cable (i.e. the number of pairs), and the number of DSL services carried within a single cable sheath.

Cable Modem Sometimes confused with fiber, Cable Modem service is offered by traditional Cable TV providers utilizing coaxial cable similar to the type that connects to your television set. Typically Cable networks use a HFC (Hybrid Fiber Coax) design where fiber is run to distribution points where the coaxial cable connects to the fiber-optic cable. Cable’s DOCSIS 3.1 standard supports over 1Gb of speed at distances up to 100 miles, however, the number of customers, taps, and amplifiers reduce the distance – generally fiber will be extended to within 6-7 miles of the farthest customer. Cable providers typically offer acceptable speeds and reliability in most towns, however, these providers

38 (Final 12/18/2016) rarely venture into rural locations. Although the technology would allow them to do so, the economics of providing the service in low density areas makes it not feasible.

Fiber to the Home A variety of monikers are used to refer to Fiber including: FTTP (Fiber to the Premise) FTTC (Fiber to the Curb), FTTN (Fiber to the Node), FTTx (Fiber to the “whatever”), and others. Essentially these names illustrate just how far the fiber-optic cables are being run in the network until they connect to either an end-user device, or another transmission medium like copper. In a true Fiber to the Home (FTTH) network, the fiber is brought all the way to the customers’ location.

There are two types of FTTH network

PON – Passive Optical Network typically uses a backbone fiber network to connect to splitters that split a single backbone fiber 32-ways to connect to fibers serving customer homes or businesses.

Active – Active fiber networks use one strand of fiber for each customer all the way from the central office or remote node to the customer.

39 (Final 12/18/2016)

The above graphic illustrates how a FTTH network is constructed. In a PON architecture, the Splitter nodes split the single input fiber to 32 homes. In an active network, the fiber network feeding the nodes would have one fiber for each home, without a splitter in the node.

Fiber-optic networks provide a variety of technical benefits over other networks. They are able to transmit data at much faster rates over greater distances – fiber is often cited as being “future- proof” due to the fact that the lasers which send light pulses through the fiber to transmit data, can be upgraded to add more capacity if needed in the future, while the ultimate capacity of the glass transmission medium is nearly unlimited.

Fiber is generally more reliable since the signal medium is glass and does not generate or require electricity. Fiber is immune to many forms of interference that hinder electrically based communications networks. Weather-related issues including lightning and moisture are less of an issue than with copper networks. Most providers who have experience operating multiple technology platforms point out that ongoing maintenance expense is significantly less on the FTTH network for a variety of reasons. The tradeoff for the advantages of a fiber network is a significantly higher up front installation cost.

Fixed Wireless Wireless Internet can be a vague term and mean different things to many people. Fixed wireless, mobile wireless, and WiFi can sometimes get confusing for folks.

Mobile wireless networks allow mobility for users – think AT&T or Verizon wireless using cell phones or mobile data hot spots. WiFi is a short-range (30 feet approximately) way to deliver Internet from a modem or router on an unlicensed spectrum. Fixed wireless services transmit to fixed locations like homes and businesses. Fixed wireless services may or may not use external antennas mounted on the outside of the building, and may use similar spectrum as mobile wireless providers, depending on a wide variety of factors.

While some carriers are providing WiFi services in highly populated areas, WiFi is not likely to be a solution for rural areas due to its short distance capabilities.

Fixed wireless services can be used to cover approximately a 5 mile radius (depending on terrain and tree cover) to connect a fiber backbone network using an earth-mounted antenna structure (from 100 – 400 feet high) to end users via either licensed or unlicensed spectrum and to either outdoor or indoor antennas connected to modems.

Fixed wireless services can work well in some areas, but do require ample tower locations for ubiquitous coverage. Generally speeds are limited, although 100Mb is achievable, and sometimes data caps are imposed.

40 (Final 12/18/2016) While it’s unclear what the large wireless carriers might be planning for fixed-wireless deployments, they have indicated they are testing 5G services using newer equipment and millimeter wave spectrum. While fast speeds are achievable, its distance capabilities are quite limited (approx. 1 mile radius) – this makes it unlikely candidate for rural deployments.

Satellite Internet Satellite Internet is delivered nearly nation-wide by beaming data from an earth-mounted base station to a geo-synchronous satellite which then delivers the signal to the customer. Due to the distance to space and back, the lag can be problematic for VoIP calling and other time-sensitive data delivery needs. While download speeds can be adequate, data caps are frequently used to limit users to general surfing instead of streaming video content.

Regulatory/Legal Considerations A regulatory review is dependent on many considerations including the technology being used, the services offered to the customer base, and most importantly the business plan for building, owning, and operating a network. Since a final network architecture and business relationships have not been chosen, the following regulatory considerations provide an overview of the regulatory considerations by service.

41 (Final 12/18/2016) Telephone The telephone industry is a heavily regulated industry and can require the most work to be in compliance. The study has revealed that telephone/voice service is adequate throughout the county. However, in the event that Carlton County or its partner(s) contemplate providing telephone service in addition to broadband, there are several activities that may need to be considered:

 Referendum for Telephone Switch/Exchange-an antiquated component of the Section 237 of Minnesota Statute requires communities who plan to build a telephone switch or exchange to receive a super-majority of voters to move forward. Given that the Carlton County goal is to create a partnership it is doubtful that an actual switch will be built, eliminating the requirement for this vote.

 Minnesota Public Utility (PUC) Certificate of Authority-required of all telephone service providers (of landline services) in the State of Minnesota. The applicant must demonstrate that they have the technical, financial, and operational ability to provide telephone service. This application also includes the financial plan of the applicant which can be protected by trade secret status. Once the Certificate of Authority is approved, a final price list of services is required and updates are needed as services change. Note that systems which are exclusively IP-based, so that the telephony services are provided as VOIP, have been placed outside the MPUC’s authority for certification purposes (Vonage Holdings decision, FCC 2004). The issue for this project will be whether access to rights of way is needed for construction; if so, getting certified as a Competitive Local Exchange Company would be required and should not be a complicated or protracted process. Cable Television Cable TV is regulated at a local and federal level. As with telephone service, the availability of traditional video services throughout the county rarely came up as a priority item during the study. If Cable TV services are pursued by either Carlton County or its partner(s), the following are regulatory considerations:

 Local Franchise-under the purview of local units of government franchising (Minnesota Statute 238) ensures that a satisfactory level of service is provided to its citizens and that the cable television provider provides channel space and financial backing of PEG (Public, Education and Government ) programming. Under Minnesota statute the cable television provider must provide a franchise fee of up to 5% of gross video revenues (does not include Internet or Telephone services). If a project involving Cable TV services moved forward, franchises would need to be negotiated with all townships and cities. It is possible for the county townships to create a cable television consortium and negotiate a county-wide franchise with the provider.

 FCC requirements-the FCC has in place regulations relating to cable television carriage of television broadcast signals, commercial leased access, program access and carriage, commercial availability of set-top boxes, emergency alert systems and the accessibility of closed captioning and video description of television programming. These regulations would apply to the provider of cable services over the network. Access to spectrum will be needed for wireless services if they are licensed spectrum, and the provider selected for wireless will need to have FCC authority for appropriate and adequate frequencies. If

42 (Final 12/18/2016) interstate facilities were to be constructed, FCC preapproval of such construction would need to be obtained. Internet Services Internet services are the least regulated of the three typical services. While there is very little regulation regarding these services other than traditional fraud/consumer protection issues, it will be important for a new provider to become and stay familiar with emerging issues regarding copyright infringement, network neutrality, and usage-based pricing. Other Regulatory/Business Considerations Beyond the regulatory requirements there are several other regulatory/business considerations for a new municipally involved project:

 Ability for a public body to bond for a telecommunication network- A Minnesota statute generally restricting the ability of Minnesota municipalities to issue bonds for projects outside of their jurisdiction provides an exception for bonds issued to finance property for municipal public utilities”. Minn. Stat. § 471.656 (2008). That same statute defines “municipal public utilities” as “the provision by a municipality of electricity, natural gas, water, wastewater removal and treatment, telecommunications, district heating, or cable television and related services”. Minn. Stat. § 471.656, subd. 3(c). The Minnesota Court of Appeals held in 2009 in Bridgewater Telephone Company, Inc. v. City of Monticello, 765 N.W.2d 905 (Minn.Ct.App. 2009), that “Providing an entire community of people with access to telephone services, cable television, and high-speed Internet seems to qualify as a benefit to the public under the changing conditions of modern life. Thus, the [triple play project] is a public convenience that also serves a public purpose.” Under the Monticello decision, cities are able to issue bonds to finance construction of fiber-based systems which will be used to provide telephone, cable, and Internet services.

 Access to Right-of-Way-is provided by either a Franchise Agreement or a Minnesota PUC Certificate of Authority as a CLEC.

 Open Meeting Laws-When a unit of government is involved in a project it can expect that even though it is operating a business it will be expected to have open public meetings

 Data Requests-Data created, generated, and held by public bodies in the process of building and operating the proposed network would be subject to the Minnesota Data Practices Act, Minn. Stat. ch. 13, and would be generally presumed to be public data unless a particular document or piece of data fit within a statutory exemption in the Act (such as negotiations for construction of the network, which are non-public data until contracts for the construction are finalized.)

43 (Final 12/18/2016) Potential County Broadband Organization Structures While Carlton county could construct a network and operate it as an Internet service provider without many regulatory hurdles, adding Cable TV or telephone services to the mix would add regulatory complexity, and Cable TV services simply provide too little margin for the added costs and labor required – especially as the landscape of linear TV services appears to be changing fairly quickly as new online competitors create a changing marketplace.

Phone service would provide fairly substantial margins, however, it would be an up-hill-climb to obtain the 65% level of votes required for approval – even if the vote was successful, getting customers to switch could be a challenge as customers continue to deflect to wireless services. If voice services were a goal, the best option would be to “resell” a current providers voice services – this could be a white-labeled service from a variety of providers. It’s likely that finding a partner to provide voice services on a county network would be relatively easy.

Instead of building and providing the services, or partnering with a current broadband provider, the county could join with other cities or towns within the county, any school district or other political subdivision of the state, a federally recognized Indian tribe, or a nonprofit hospital to form a joint powers board to fund, construct, and operate the network.

Partnership examples and benefits One of the most talked about solutions for expanding broadband in underserved areas are public/private partnerships, sometimes referred to as PPPs. These partnerships have taken a variety of forms throughout the country in the past several years – some with noticeable success, some with marginal success, and some all but failures.

These partnerships allow communities which would normally not see broadband improvements from private providers due to the costs associated with network improvements, to get connectivity by being part of the solution while leveraging the assets (financial, expertise, equipment etc.) of partners. These partnerships seek to better align the goals of both the long-term community improvement focus of the public partner with the shorter-term payback required for the private partner. Further, these partnerships allow each party to focus on their core competencies – both the public entity and the private entity require unique focus, skillsets, competencies and equipment – in broadband deployment, there are generally not a lot of overlapping county employee competencies that can be leveraged for economies of scale.

44 (Final 12/18/2016) The Institute for Local Self Reliance researched a variety of these partnerships from throughout the U.S. and documented their structures, and initial outcomes in their report titled: Successful Strategies for Broadband Public-Private Partnerships.

Communities engaging in a PPP should retain some agency for future decision-making. Westminster, Leverett, Santa Cruz, and others own part of the network to retain that control. They have each spent tremendous effort educating the community and demonstrating support. – Institute for Local Self Reliance’s research paper: Successful Strategies for Broadband Public-Private Partnerships

The ILSR report continues to say, “Some communities have pinned their hopes on Google or other new entrepreneurial firms [to bring new broadband services].” But the number of locations where new competitors will build a network from scratch are limited by market dynamics. Therefore, more and more communities are searching for an approach where they can take an active role in shaping the future of local Internet access. “These market dynamics are especially problematic in rural areas where one provider with 100% take rates can hardly justify the investment, but less in a market where they may compete with several other providers.”

Partnering from a provider’s perspective can work well because much of the back-office infrastructure and systems can be leveraged to provide services to increased numbers of customers with modest or even no investment required. Other things like staff, vehicles etc. can be leveraged by adding marginal increases to handle the additional work load.

Milo Medin from Google fiber says this: “If there is one message I want cities to leave here with, it’s that you need to start owning how you plan to improve broadband in your community. Don’t wait to have us or someone else do it for you. You can take meaningful action starting today.”

In Minnesota alone we’ve seen some unique partnerships, many which have been started and driven to some extent by the city or county.

The following notes are highlights of what some Minnesota communities have done to improve broadband in their areas. More in-depth information and project specifics can be found in the Institute for Self Reliance’s All Hands on Deck report: http://ilsr.org/wp- content/uploads/downloads/2014/09/all_hands_on_deck_mn.pdf and RS Fiber: Fertile Fields for new Rural Internet Cooperative: https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/04/rs- fiber-report-2016.pdf

RS Fiber RS Fiber, which includes portions of both Renville and Sibley counties, has recently begun construction of its first phase of a fiber/wireless build out. The area covered by the townships

45 (Final 12/18/2016) included in the RS Fiber project is approximately 700 mi2, or about 19% less than the 861 mi2 in all of Carlton County.

RS Fiber uses a partnership model leveraging the telecom expertise of Hiawatha Broadband Communications (HBC) as the operating entity for the network. The actual network is owned by a newly created cooperative (RS Fiber) which was created when 17 townships and 10 cities in the two counties joined together in an attempt to improve broadband services in their area. Funding for the new cooperative came largely from General Obligation Tax Abatement bonds sold by the cities involved (with proceeds loaned to the new cooperative) in the project as well as bank loans, rural development loans through the local power cooperative, and a state of MN Broadband grant. Officials suggest that by making the bond proceeds the second position lender, it enticed banks to loan the remaining funds needed. If things go south for this project, it’s expected to cost tax payers $10-$15/month (this is the worst case scenario.)

Seven years of planning, working, meeting, talking, and thinking went into the creation of this venture, with several false starts and set-backs. A project of this magnitude requires thoughtful planning, contingency plans, partnership with well-qualified (and creative) resources, and a little luck.

RS Fiber leaders suggest that all communities are different, and what works in one area may fail in another. They also suggest that partnering with the larger providers may be the easiest path to success, even if that means providing funding to large providers.

Lac Qui Parle County/Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative In 2009, Farmers Mutual Telephone Cooperative partnered with Lac Qui Parle County to split the costs of planning and building a fiber-optic network to all areas of the county except the city of Madison (who already had broadband from the cable provider).

Farmers and the Lac Qui Parle County EDA would apply for ARRA funding. Their application would combine grant and loan funding; both entities would repay the loan dollars equally and if the project required more than the ARRA funding allowed, the partners would split the cost of the overages.

This project received a $9.6 million award (half grant, half loan), and by 2014 nearly 400 customers had connected to the network. New customers are not immediately granted member status due to the substantial construction investment (to essentially pay the current members back for their investment in the new area), but over time will be added as traditional cooperative members.

This project was relatively straight-forward, but did require a significant investment from the county to make it happen. It also required the long-term vision and payback period that rural cooperatives and rural counties understand and appreciate

Cook County/Arrowhead Electric Cook County, in the farthest North East corner of Minnesota sought to improve their broadband coverage. What eventually materialized was a combination of partnerships between Arrowhead

46 (Final 12/18/2016) Electric Cooperative, North East Service Cooperative (NESC), and Consolidated Telecommunication Cooperative (CTC) located in Brainerd and Baxter, MN.

The $20 million dollar project was funded by a $4.8 million in a low interest loan and $11.3 million in a grant through the Broadband Initiatives Program of the Rural Utilities Service under ARRA, as well as a $4 million grant from the county coming from a $.005 sales tax surcharge.

With rugged terrain, challenging weather and remote customers, Arrowhead was able build the network that thousands of customers benefit from.

While building the network was one consideration, so too was data transport connectivity to Duluth for special circuits and wholesale Internet services as well as day to day management of the network.

To address the connectivity issue, Arrowhead signed a long-term contract with NESC (who had also received ARRA funding for a middle-mile fiber optic project) to trade fiber in their respective areas. This saved time and money, and benefitted both organizations without requiring cash expenditures.

The network management component of the network was contracted to CTC. CTC was able to utilize their expertise, manpower, and voice switch to provide the day to day services Arrowhead Electric needed to operate their new network. While CTC has no ownership in the network, they have technical expertise and a cooperative approach which works well with the cooperative employees at Arrowhead.

Dakota County Dakota County has been working since the 90’s to install conduit and fiber during road and street construction/reconstructions – over time this process has saved millions of dollars in construction costs and allows the county access to increasing numbers of areas with conduit in which to later install fiber.

Scott County Scott County has built its own fiber ring which it uses to connect all the county offices and anchor institutions. The network is owned by the county, but managed and operated by Zayo. The county says that the $4 million investment has allowed it some $500k savings per year. Including bond payments, the yearly outcome is close to break-even, but does provide a fast and reliable network for the county to use internally, for anchor institutions, and business development.

Carver County Carver County built its fiber backbone network in 2010, funded primarily with a Federal Broadband Technology Opportunities Program grant. The county then partnered with Jaguar communications to operate and manage the network, which is also an open network allowing other providers up to 24 strands of fiber for use to connect customers.

47 (Final 12/18/2016) City of Windom While the city of Windom has been often cited as a failure, it does depend on the measure of success. One thing that Windom does have going for it, is that it started early – getting ahead of competing offerings which afforded it less competition, and likely higher revenues. Arguments have been made for and against the success of this network. While the scope of the project changed and costs were added, and overall benefits to the community are hard to measure, the Windomnet project does provide benefits for the community beyond what is measured in the revenues of the network. While it may have likely been more prudent to partner with an established provider, that was not an option in this case. The network has been in place for approximately 10 years, and 2015 financials show an approximate operating loss of $183,000 for Telecom services.

Google Fiber While it still remains a little unclear as to why Google has entered the residential broadband business, it has certainly created buzz. Google has a long list of communities who have requested that it bring its operations to their communities. While Google gets a lot of notoriety for its fiber offering relatively low cost and high speeds, it’s important to note that its actual foot print is very very small in terms of what it would take to connect all the homes in America with fiber.

Google typically cherry-picks its build areas asking for a certain level of subscriber commitment before construction will begin, this leaves some cities fragmented. It has though in many cases resulted in an increased focus by the incumbent providers which has improved options for more customers. As mentioned earlier, this competitive improvement only works in dense locations.

One piece of the Google Fiber model that should be considered for Carlton county is this private- led cooperation. Municipal governments have partnered with Google to facilitate new private investment by streamlining permitting processes and providing property for network huts in the field.

It’s recently been announced that Google is halting its Fiber plans, and the division’s leader has stepped down, citing a focus on new technology. They mention focusing on new wireless technologies to lower delivery costs. As mentioned in the wireless section of this report, wireless services will remain distance-limited, and not likely a good long-term candidate for even the towns within Carlton County.

City of Monticello, MN The city of Monticello has been talked about often regarding the challenges that come from municipal networks. Launched in 2010, FiberNet Monticello has struggled with a variety of challenges ranging from a lawsuit by TDS (a stalling tactic while they overbuilt the town with their own fiber), to incumbent providers’ aggressive pricing.

48 (Final 12/18/2016) "Monticello has recognized it cannot pay back its bonds in this environment," Mitchell said. "So it's restructuring its debt, bond holders are having to take a haircut in order to make sure that the network will be able to continue and to keep bringing benefits to the people of Monticello."

- Christopher Mitchell, director of the Telecommunications Initiative at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

While Monticello now has the lowest prices on some of the best service options of any place in the country, the economics of a community of 13,000 residents does not lend itself well to having three providers, as the Cable TV provider also upgraded its network and provides very competitive service.

Ultimately the city defaulted on its Revenue bonds and worked to negotiate with bond holders, which ultimately hurt its bond rating. Eventually, the city sold $5.75 Million in GO bonds to settle with the original revenue bond holders.

While this was happening, Hiawatha Broadband, who was managing the network for the city, stepped aside due to the turmoil. It then took several years before announcing a new management company.

On top of all of this, competing with incumbents has proven to be very hard due to the limited market size and aggressive competition from incumbent providers.

PPP Summary and Options for Carlton County Many of the partnerships we outlined are still relatively new and as the ISLR mentions some areas suffer from “irrational exuberance” when looking at developing these partnerships. These partnerships need to be carefully weighed and planned to ensure success for all parties.

Many of the partnerships we outlined are still relatively new and as the ISLR mentions some areas suffer from “irrational exuberance” when looking at developing these partnerships. - Institute for Local Self Reliance

We advocate that partnerships present the best opportunity to improve broadband availability throughout the greatest portion of Carlton County.

49 (Final 12/18/2016) While many customers would love to have faster Internet services, the reality is that many are also likely happy with low-cost service that mostly meets their needs. Therefore, we need to look critically at the ways the county can make improvements that will ultimately pay for themselves.

The Challenge:

Currently the county’s larger towns are “adequately” served (based on competitive analysis) by their respective providers – meaning if a new provider were to come in, they would have a very hard time getting even 50% of the customers. Further, a fair number of rural areas will have improved service from the CAF II improvements scheduled for the following years – again, while these upgrades are to at least 10/1 and not likely to be cutting-edge by any measure, there are customers who will be happy with those solutions (especially if priced low).

Unfortunately, the county has Internet that is a little “too good’ to allow for a competing network to be paid for. In order to build to the high-cost low-density rural areas, revenues are needed from customers in the denser areas of the county. Due to ample competition from providers within the dense areas (Cable providers, Telecom providers, and Wireless providers) there is little likelihood of getting the number of customers needed to support the entire network. Unfortunately building to just the unserved customers (at a rate of $13,000 per customer) is not feasible, as payback time periods are decades away.

How can the incumbent providers do it?

The Price-Cap Carriers have assets that they can leverage, including fiber backbone rings that are currently in place, they have staff and equipment that can be leveraged to provide these services, and most importantly, they are receiving CAF II funding to aid in the construction.

Rate of Return carriers are afforded USF funding to assist them in improving their networks.

Cable providers stick to densely populated areas to get their returns, and wireless providers can build business cases on fewer subscribers while keeping their towers in semi-dense areas.

Most other providers focus on multiple revenue generating units per customer, i.e. broadband, telephone, video, security, etc.

All of these factors make adding a new network very challenging.

As the first choice, we urge the county to work with existing providers to improve their networks. Assuming the existing providers are willing partners, by leveraging what they already have with some additional funding, it’s the most efficient use of dollars, and the most likely opportunity for success.

Potential Funding Sources CoBank CoBank provides loans to cooperatives, and has recently begun talking more about providing loans to electric cooperatives to increase broadband in their rural areas. To leverage CoBank

50 (Final 12/18/2016) funding in Carlton county, a cooperative partner or a newly created cooperative would be required to apply for loans through CoBank.

USAC The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) has recently changed how they administer the Universal Service Fund’s (USF) E-Rate program. The E-Rate program provides CapEx and OpEx funding for schools and libraries with funding from end-user contributions to USF on monthly telephone bills.

With the recent CapEx change, Schools and Libraries can get funding to not only lease network space, but also help with the capital investment of building a fiber network. Typically these funds would be provided to a provider partner for construction purposes in exchange for a long-term IRU (Indefeasible Right to Use) for dark fiber or lit services.

While Carlton County schools and libraries are currently connected, this program may assist an entity looking to help a school expand to a new building or area etc. and leverage those CapEx dollars to build a portion of the network. While this is not a county-wide-approach, it may assist the county or partner in some areas for schools/libraries with fiber needs.

REDLG The Rural Economic Development Loan (REDL) and Grant (REDG) programs provide funding to rural projects through local utility organizations. Under the REDLoan program, USDA provides zero interest loans to local utilities which they, in turn, pass through to local businesses (ultimate recipients) for projects that will create and retain employment in rural areas. The ultimate recipients repay the lending utility directly. The utility is responsible for repayment to the Agency. Under the REDGrant program, USDA provides grant funds to local utility organizations which use the funding to establish revolving loan funds (RLF). Loans are made from the revolving loan funds to projects that will create or retain rural jobs. When the revolving loan fund is terminated, the grant is repaid to the Agency.

Intermediaries may use Rural Economic Development Loan & Grant (REDLG) funds to lend for projects in rural areas or towns with a population of 50,000 or less with the intention of growing or maintaining jobs in rural areas.

Up to $300,000 in grants and $1M in loans are available.

Local power cooperatives could assist with securing these loans, however, the utility takes all of the risk for repaying the loans, which they may or may not be willing to do. Rural Utility Service (RUS) The Rural Utility Service division of the United States Department of Agriculture has been providing loans to fund rural telecommunications and broadband projects for over fifty years. The Rural Broadband Access Loans and Loan Guarantees Program, also known as the Farmbill Broadband Loan Program, is a potential source of financing for projects to improve access unserved areas like those in Carlton County. Applications under this program are for 100% rural areas, with at least 15% of households unserved. The current definition of unserved is less than 10/1

51 (Final 12/18/2016) availability. Projects financed under the program must meet at least 10/1, however 25/3 encouraged. The maximum single loan amount is $10 million.

The current year's program is closed (as of July 7, 2016) and no additional applications are being accepted at this time. Future funding is dependent on appropriation through the Farmbill in the next federal budget cycle. Although not available for this year, this program may be an option down the road for Carlton County and/or partners.

Bonding General Obligation or Revenue Bond options exist to potentially fund broadband projects. Each bonding option has their own set of benefits and drawbacks. As mentioned earlier, various municipalities have used a variety of funding solutions (combining grants, government and private institution loans, and bond proceeds to fund their projects. Many have combined several forms of financing to get the level of funding required to start the project. Carlton County’s financial advisor should be well versed in determining the best approach for bond funding from the county, should any build or partner decisions be made. It’s possible also, that State of Minnesota loans be used for this sort of infrastructure.

The likely best approach to understanding the ramifications of using bond financing or state loans would be to identify two or three plausible structure scenarios, then proceed with a review of those scenarios and the goals of the project.

52 (Final 12/18/2016) Engineering Study Overview

Assumptions for financial analysis For the following financial models the following assumptions apply:

 Models assume a new entity is providing service.  Take rate of 50% locations passed. While 50% may appear pessimistic based on the survey results, the assumptions are based on the uncertainty of the future build-outs by incumbent providers and their ability to compete on price.  Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) = $55. This is based on a broadband-only service. Adding additional complimentary services can significantly increase ARPU. As an example, services like TV provide substantial revenue contribution, however video offers very little margin contribution. In addition, the increased complexity and costs to provide TV, especially in light of the unclear future of linear TV services, provide further guidance for a new entrant not to provide video. Voice services offer considerable margins, but the product is also in a state of steady decline, and does increase regulatory complexities.  The revenue and operational expenditures assume customer additions starting in the fourth month, with a relatively quick ramp-up period assuming rapid growth in the first seven months to achieve the 50% take rate threshold. After 50% is achieved, no further growth is assumed due to churn replacing new subscribers.  Modest assumptions for staffing are used including only one customer service representative and two technicians. There are dollars budgeted for professional services in the initial year of the project for outsourcing of these activities during heavy growth periods.  OpEx spending is also relatively modest overall at less than $1M for the first year, and even less for subsequent years  Cost assumptions for the Capital Expenditures include leveraging existing fiber within the county that we anticipate would be available for middle-mile connectivity. Backbone connectivity for backbone (4.5M) and wireless design model solutions includes leased dark-fiber from NESC.  Where new fiber is constructed (both mainline and customer cables), primary method of construction is buried. However, due to the presence of bedrock in specific areas of the county, portions of the network will require either aerial attachment or placement within rock.  Financial models all include a need for significant grant/public funding revenues.  Assumed 5% interest rate on debt used in models.  Depreciation rates in models: 25 years - Buildings; 20 years - Fiber Network; 10 years - Electronics; 5 years - CPE/Tools

Wireless (Fixed and Mobile) First and foremost, it’s important to be clear that wireless services utilize a wired fiber-optic connection for at least some portion of the connectivity. While new technologies allow for much

53 (Final 12/18/2016) improved point-to-point microwave data transmission between towers, the amount of bandwidth required to connect a network of cellular or fixed wireless tower requires fiber-optic transport to at likely half of the towers in a network (using microwave backhaul between fiber-fed and non-fiber- fed towers. Transport needs depend on the number of customers the tower is serving, and the usage requirements. As consumers find more and richer entertainment and learning experiences online, the increased data usage requires increased transport requirements.

Due to a number of factors including the presence of both Moose-Tec and Compudyne in Carlton County who cover significant portions of the county, as well as the lack of scalability to meet state broadband grant requirements, this study will only briefly touch on the potential costs for a wireless overbuild. The estimates here are very high-level. Obtaining accurate pricing would require propagation studies, spectrum research, existing tower facility research, and clear goals of the project.

A variety of considerations are required for a wireless network design, including:

 Tower space availability  Tower construction costs  Backhaul options  Spectrum availability  Bandwidth requirements  Terrain/coverage consideration

While wireless can be a cost-effective way to start offering services, there are several challenges including coverage gaps, spectrum availability, and increased tower requirements for future speed enhancements.

Fortunately, wireless technologies are improving rapidly and fast Internet speeds (100Mb) are now or soon will be achievable. However, the frequency used to deliver these faster speeds reduces the distance the signal travels (which requires more towers, which are closer together). Additionally, these higher frequencies don’t penetrate through foliage or walls as well as lower frequency signals.

On the other hand, unfortunately Carlton County’s terrain is not conducive to a simple wireless solution.

A potential benefit to the county might be to assist local public responders with their wireless data needs – this may allow the county (or wireless partner) to generate revenues, and allow citizens to benefit in multiple ways.

Tower leases can be challenging depending on how much physical capacity the tower has for additional radios – some towers are less populated than others.

If Carlton County chose to explore a wireless overbuild the aforementioned considerations will need to be addressed. Once an overall plan is formed, a propagation study will be required to understand how specific geographic areas will be covered, and the speeds users could expect to

54 (Final 12/18/2016) see. Upon completion of this study, spectrum will need to researched, and backbone transport leased or built, and finally towers are either constructed or leased.

It's important to note that currently some large employers will not allow telework if their employees’ remote broadband access is via a wireless networks. This restriction can severely limit the success of attracting and retaining remote workers in rural parts of the county.

Within the wireless network model there may be sub-model options including:

 Construct a full wireless network and become a WISP (wireless Internet Service Provider)  Create an open network by building a backbone network and constructing towers to allow for partners to provide services  Provide streamlined permitting processes for new towers

Variables:

 Use existing towers/build new  Fiber backhaul/microwave/microwave to a portion of the towers, or lease backhaul transport from current providers, among whom NESC would be favorable  Open Network/complete wireless solution for retail services  Areas targeted – county-wide/areas of poor coverage/rural areas only

The following outlines the costs associated with constructing a network to connect the unserved portions of the county, using the following assumptions:

 35% take rate of unserved homes  Focused on building to cover the unserved areas  Utilized “Backbone-only” design which leverages NESC fiber, and some new construction  30 total sites, leasing 15 existing towers, 15 new towers  Assumes available space on current towers, does not have a cost assumption for space lease, hut lease, or backhaul  Fiber feeds to half of the tower, microwave backhaul to the other half  Assumes wholesale Internet service purchased from NESC with no transport to carrier hotel  Does not assume costs for any required spectrum acquisition  Coverage and speeds will vary depending on the area of the county and the terrain and distances to home – approximately 20Mb could be expected

Equipment Unit Cost Quantity Total Propagation study & Engineering $50,000 1 $50,000 Node B and 3 Sectors (3.65 Ghz) $22,000 30 $660,000 Antennas, outdoor cabinet misc $8,000 30 $240,000 Tower crew installation $12,000 30 $360,000 Microwave backhaul and dishes $15,000 15 $225,000 Lateral fiber connection from backbone $145,000 15 $2,175,000 Tower construction $260,000 15 $3,900,000

55 (Final 12/18/2016) County-wide Fiber Backbone network $3,486,610 1 $3,608,610 Customer premise/installation/tools $698,517.92 1 $698,517 Total $11,917,128

The following table illustrates a high level financial projection for this project.

Wireless Model Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 *Revenue - Public Grant 2,000,000 Revenue - Services 477,169 972,399 1,057,668 1,141,957 1,236,046 COGS 17,352 35,360 38,461 41,526 44,947 Expenses 825,289 457,509 462,441 423,237 426,693 EBITDA 1,634,528 479,531 556,767 677,194 764,406

Depreciation 400,978 724,592 731,744 738,814 746,707 Interest 332,774 595,856 587,772 569,558 550,412 Net Income 900,776 (840,917) (762,749) (631,178) (532,713)

Net Increase (Decrease) 1,267,339 (157,640) (444,847) (332,682) (245,470) in Cash

Long Term Debt (End of Year Balance) 11,917,127.92 11,917,127.92 11,561,126.20 11,186,910.76 10,793,549.75

The likely most cost-effective solution for improving wireless services would be to partner with a current wireless ISP to add sites and improve coverage/speeds – this could be in the form of a CapEx grant provided in exchange for build-out requirements and possible pre-paid services to county locations. This option may make the most sense in terms of cost-effectively adding speed and availability within the county.

There are some significant hurdles to building a wireless network. One of the largest is customer acquisition – once CenturyLink and Frontier complete their CAF II builds, it may be a challenge to compete with those providers, and ultimately gain enough customers to support a large wireless network infrastructure.

Fiber to the Home The primary focus of this study centers on options for Fiber to the Home (FTTH). This section summarizes the various scenarios studied to improve broadband access via fiber throughout the

56 (Final 12/18/2016) county. DEED’s 2016 Broadband Service Inventory - Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant Program maps were utilized as the basis for the study.

Here is the outline of the scenarios modeled, studied, and presented in the following pages:

 Baseline: Full County FTTH Overbuild  Scenario 1: FTTH Build to Cover Unserved Areas  Scenario 2: Backbone Network-Only  Scenario 3: Backbone Network with Select Local Build along the Way  Scenario 4: What’s Left

57 (Final 12/18/2016) Baseline: Full County FTTH Overbuild As a baseline for reference, a complete FTTH deployment throughout 100% of the county was modeled. This scenario is not highly probable since 45% of county homes and business are estimated as already served (per the DEED maps), with another 6% underserved. However, it does provide context for comparing more probable outcomes described later.

The full FTTH overbuild would require over 1,443 route miles of mainline fiber construction along with over 562 route miles of service cables to customers (14,244 establishments passed / 7,132 customers at a 50% take rate). Total cost for this complete network is $70.5 million, equating to an average cost per customer of $9,890 (at 50% take rate).

The following table details the baseline reference of a complete FTTH overbuild:

58 (Final 12/18/2016)

A little further analysis is worthwhile to reveal the complexity of the costs among all the different areas within the county. The costs to serve some areas are much different than others. The single greatest factor driving the average investment per customer for a network is density, i.e. locations per mile of plant constructed. As the number of locations per mile increases, cost per customer decreases, and vice versa. The following table illustrates the diverse costs per customer throughout

59 (Final 12/18/2016) the county. The shaded green cells reflect high density on one end of the scale, and shaded red are low density on the other end.

60 (Final 12/18/2016) Scenario 1: FTTH Build to Cover Unserved Areas This first scenario looks at unserved areas based on the DEED maps, and estimated costs for FTTH to cover all of those unserved areas. This scenario excludes the identified served/underserved areas, consisting mostly of the higher density (relatively speaking) city/town areas within the county, including: Carlton, Cloquet, Thomson, Esko, Barnum, Moose Lake and Wrenshall. The end result of this scenario is broadband access to 100% of the county, with new network construction to unserved areas, and no change to current underserved and served areas. The following map depicts the scope of this project with areas constructed shaded in light magenta:

This scenario requires 1,149 route miles of mainline fiber construction and 305 route miles of service cables to customers (7,000 establishments passed / 3,500 customers at a 50% take rate). Total cost is estimated is $45.8 million, equating to an average cost per customer of $13,083 (at 50% take rate). The following table details the project capital costs:

61 (Final 12/18/2016)

62 (Final 12/18/2016) The following table illustrates a high level financial projection for this project, with a hypothetical public grant funding level of $30 million and an additional $16 million in loans in order to achieve positive annual net cash flow and at least a slight improving trend in net income:

Unserved $45M

Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Revenue ‐ Public Grant 30,000,000 ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ Revenue ‐ Services 1,143,450 2,286,900 2,286,900 2,286,900 2,286,900 COGS 41,580 83,160 83,160 83,160 83,160 Expenses 891,900 412,200 412,200 369,000 369,000 EBITDA 30,209,970 1,791,540 1,791,540 1,834,740 1,834,740

Depreciation 1,207,210 2,426,322 2,426,322 2,426,322 2,426,322 Interest 131,676 779,840 754,706 729,337 702,669 Net Income (before Taxes) 28,871,085 (1,414,623) (1,389,488) (1,320,919) (1,294,252)

Net Increase (Decrease) in Cash 7,657 519,971 540,971 584,171 584,172

In summary, compared to the baseline Full County FTTH scenario, removing the highest density areas of the county from the project results in a cost that is 32% more per customer (or location passed). This massive undertaking fairly represents the cost to extend fiber-based broadband access to the projected unserved areas of Carlton County. If undertaken, a project of this size would typically be implemented on a phased approach, most likely broken down into 3-5 manageable phases with one phase completed per year.

63 (Final 12/18/2016) Scenario 2: Backbone Network‐Only The next scenario studied contemplates a backbone fiber network throughout the county. This network only provides interconnection of all communities within the county, often referred to as a transport or middle-mile network, but does not directly provide local service. It is a 10 Gb network with 1 Gb add/drop capability at each community. The concept of this deployment is that the backbone transport network would be the first phase, or even more likely a portion of the first phase, of a larger project resulting in a platform to support future local service network projects. It is also conceivable that the backbone network could be utilized initially for a few specific anchor institution needs.

The following map depicts the scope of this project with the backbone fiber route and network nodes shown in red, leased fiber from Northeast Service Cooperative (NESC) in thick dashed blue:

The backbone network requires only about 36 route miles of new mainline fiber construction, 87 route miles of leased existing fiber from NESC, and equipment shelters (huts) to house equipment at each of the 14 community/node locations. Even though no local service facilities are included with the backbone network, all facilities constructed would be designed to accommodate future FTTH deployment, e.g. fiber cables placed have sufficient capacity and splice access for local service application. Total capital cost of this project is estimated at $3.5 million, detailed on the following table:

64 (Final 12/18/2016)

While it is unlikely that the backbone network would be implemented as a stand-alone project, it is most likely a key component of any comprehensive county-wide solution, and therefore worthwhile to understand the costs associated with this network.

65 (Final 12/18/2016) Scenario 3: Backbone Network with Select Local Build along the Way This scenario begins with the previous backbone network, and then adds in construction of local service FTTH in each of the unserved communities along the way (Cromwell, Kettle River and Wright). There are several motivations for this approach. First, the communities have the highest density of the unserved rural areas in the county, which means local networks to serve these areas will achieve the greatest “bang for the buck” in terms of reaching the greatest number of unserved locations for the least amount of investment. And second, with a goal of working towards a Border to Border Grant eligible project of less than $10 million, this type of project is representative of something in that range.

This project is a realistic first phase of implementation of an overall plan to extend broadband access to the unserved areas of the county. All facilities constructed in this scenario will readily accommodate future expansion phases of local service FTTH to the remaining rural unserved areas.

The following map depicts the scope of this project, again showing the backbone network in thick red, with communities constructed shaded in light magenta:

This scenario requires about 53 route miles of mainline fiber construction, 8 route miles of service cables to customers (252 establishments passed / 126 customers at a 50% take rate). Total cost is estimated is $4.8 million, equating to an average cost per customer of $38,092 (at 50% take rate). The extremely high cost per customer in this case is a result of the common backbone network allocated across a very few amount of customers. As a hypothetical grant project requiring $2.4

66 (Final 12/18/2016) million in matching funds on a 50/50 match, this provides a realistic picture of what such a project might look like in terms of investment and locations passed.

67 (Final 12/18/2016)

68 (Final 12/18/2016) The following table illustrates high level financial projections for this project:

Backbone Fiber $4.8M Year 1 Year 2 Year 3 Year 4 Year 5 Revenue ‐ Public Grant 4,774,930 ‐ ‐ ‐ ‐ Revenue ‐ Services 41,164 82,328 82,328 82,328 82,328 COGS 1,497 2,994 2,994 2,994 2,994 Expenses 743,492 422,784 422,784 379,584 379,584 EBITDA 4,071,105 (343,449) (343,449) (300,249) (300,249)

Depreciation 154,934 257,432 257,432 257,432 257,432 Interest 3,125 57,500 77,500 97,500 117,500 Net Income (before Taxes) 3,913,047 (658,382) (678,382) (655,182) (675,182)

Net Increase (Decrease) in Cash 44,490 (949) (20,949) 2,251 (17,749)

The financial projections reveal that this project, in and of itself, is not feasible as on-going financing is required just to meet cash flow. It is illustrative, however, in comparison to the much larger Scenario 1: Unserved project. In order to improve the financial projections for this project, it would either need to be scaled up to reach more locations/customers, or similarly be considered an initial phase of a bigger overall project, with a commitment to proceed with future phases to reach more locations.

69 (Final 12/18/2016) Conclusion: Two Possible Paths The process of this study is one of the first steps toward the overall goal of improving broadband access throughout Carlton County. The report can be used as a tool to identify goals, strategize about funding and partnerships, and understand the breadth of tasks required to improve broadband within the county.

Carlton County faces a choice between two very different paths moving forward:

1. Minimal Local Public Funding 2. Significant Local Public Funding

Minimal Local Public Funding

Proceeding with this path, Carlton County will largely assume the role of facilitator and catalyst. Other than for small special projects, or via separate initiatives directed by individual cities, it is unlikely that a new provider will be attracted to the county. Thus the county will focus mostly on working with the existing incumbent providers, and partnering with them on future Broadband Grant applications from DEED to upgrade/expand their networks, assuming that program continues. The county’s contribution in this scenario is to take the lead on preparing grant applications. However, the county will have little leverage over the scope or prioritization of incumbent providers’ upgrade plans. CAF II upgrades to 10Mb/1Mb service over the next five years will be the best case for most rural locations that are presently unserved.

The City of Cloquet has done groundwork along these lines which provides an example as well as ideas for future direction. Cloquet has worked hard to bring providers to the table for some time, while outlining areas of need for providers to assist with. While these efforts may not always appear fruitful, progress is being made, and providers have taken notice. Certainly the largest challenge is funding.

The following is an outline of steps for Carlton County, as well as individual cities and/or townships, to consider:

 Define goals – Virtually every goal associated with the improvement of broadband throughout the county fits into one of the following two related objectives: o Economic Development o Improved quality of life for residents  Brainstorm potential partners that align with the defined goal o Current providers (Frontier, CenturyLink, Mediacom, SCI, Fon du Lac, Compudyne, NESC) o New providers (Consolidated Telecommunications Company, Paul Bunyan Communications, and other independents), power companies, community stakeholders, etc.  Continuing/adapting initiatives like Cloquet has to reach out to providers and the business community to bridge the gaps – measuring success with small improvements

70 (Final 12/18/2016)  Continue pressuring providers to make specific improvements in the areas the county deems most important – whether that’s for businesses for community development or for residential users  Creatively work with Moose-Tec to assist in its decision-making process for the future of its wireless services  Establish funding to help partner providers o State funding, county funding, city funding, power cooperative REDLG loans, etc. may all be required to make improvements  Continue educational outreach to constituents to ensure residents and businesses know the goals, and ways they can help the project  Taking the lead on potential state broadband grants will likely be required, as illustrated support is imperative for a successful grant application (keep in mind these state grants are only likely to be available for unserved and underserved rural areas)  It may be beneficial for the county or cities to provide loans to providers for smaller buildouts to specific areas until demand will pay for the services – as an example, the Cloquet business park will have a hard time attracting new businesses without fiber, and providers will have a hard time justifying a build without potential customers. In this scenario, the city could provide a loan (maybe 75% of the build cost) to the provider to get fiber into the park, which will help the marketability of the park to new businesses. The provider would then pay a portion of the loan back each time a new tenant moves into the park.  Consider a county grant program for local businesses to use for fiber construction – by targeting businesses who have the need, and interest for improvements, the dollars used can be leveraged to assist with builds to new or existing businesses  Consider working with ambitious residents who are interested in helping improve broadband in the county. While not ideal, and there are few examples of this approach, it may be the only option for some remote areas. Helping reduce regulatory barriers for individuals who want to operate a small system to feed their neighbors (thorough consideration required) might be an option when none others exist.

Significant Local Public Funding

Under this alternative, Carlton County will be taking a much more active role in a process to extend broadband to the unserved areas of the county. This path does not involve the county becoming a new service provider, but instead actively attracting and selecting the best willing partner(s) to provide the service. The partner(s) may or may not be any of the incumbents. In addition to potential State grant dollars, the county would contribute grants, financing, or a combination of both as part of an overall framework that enables the partner(s) to feasibly build/operate the large-scale network that meets the needs within the county. The partner(s) in this project would operate the network and potentially own it depending on the structure, leveraging expertise and operational scale. The county’s funding participation will provide the ability to set requirements

71 (Final 12/18/2016) and priorities to insure objectives are met. If the goal is to bring fiber and 100 Mb and higher services to all currently unserved areas, then ultimately this is the only path to accomplish this.

Next Steps 1. Gauge appetite for County funding. The Social Media Outreach results indicate there is interest among the public for the county’s financial support of broadband improvements. However, the survey didn’t at all get into the impact for taxpayers of this. Leadership may already have a good understanding about the true level of support that exists, but whether this is known or not, it is truly a key factor in determining the path moving forward. 2. Meet with Incumbent Providers who are willing. This process has started, though not all providers are willing to meet. Keeping an open dialogue and reinforcing relationships with the providers is beneficial regardless of the path chosen. 3. Watch Martin County/Frontier Grant Application. This grant application is a case study both in terms of a potential partnership between Carlton County and Frontier, and also in terms of how DEED will view Frontier’s technical approach. 4. Monitor CenturyLink / Frontier CAF II upgrades in 2017. The size of the areas upgraded, and the number of locations impacted in 2017 are important for the county to factor into its decisions. Ideally each company would share its plans with the county once budgets are set, but it’ll be even more important to confirm what is actually upgraded during the year. This will also help paint the picture for what’s to come in future years.

72 (Final 12/18/2016) Attachment 1-Social Media Survey Open Responses Please share an example of how the current speed of Internet services in Carlton County impacts your life at home or at work?

Just better able to get things done

Upgrade downloads can take hours. Movie streaming is occasionally interrupted.

After a short period of heavy use, my internet provider slows down our connection which is really frustrating when I'm trying to use a lot of data, such as posting photos and videos to our website/social media, backing up data to cloud services, etc. Many online services like Google photos, Skype, etc, that are commonplace in the business world are practically unusable.

I run two small publishing businesses and have a very hard time uploading book files to my printers. I have an office in Duluth because I can't get the internet speeds I need...I would love to have an office in Carlton instead. I sometimes have to go to an internet cafe to work. We also only have regular TV and would love to stream movies from Netflix. Impossible with our current connection speeds. My kids are in first and third grade and they are using the phone, ipad and computer more and more for both fun and school work. We often have to switch some devices to our cell plan or shut off devices to get enough band width.

Very difficult as I have school age children who need to use a lot of Internet

Email is sluggish JPEG may or may not deliver Impossible to stream video

I need internet, it is a part of our everyday business . We own Country Creations Inc and we service a 100 mile radius it is inpartive to our business. Our cell service with At&T is terrible some times we have no service at all .

We probably wouldn't switch at work, but at home I'm desperate to find something else. I can no longer work effectively from home because of our slow connection.

We Homeschool and there are many thing that we can't do because we only have 15GB to use a month

We utilize team veiwer to access our quickbooks while on worksites. We haven't had higher speed to compare with, so are satisfied with what we experience...but would notice the speed difference. takes more time, some things won't load

Kids cannot do there school work and it takes forever to load

Cannot download plans for jobs in a reasonable amount of time or connect to other offices within the company

5 family members wait for connection

73 (Final 12/18/2016) My kids are starting school and not having internet hurts what they can do for their school work as things are very electronic! Plus to stay informed with the parent portal.

It is very frustrating waiting for pages to load on one device at a time, can't use more than one at a time.

It's great.

No internet available at home

Can't stream movies. Super slow for class assignments. Only one user at a time or really super slow.

It's great. Butt out.

Can't use streaming video services at home.

Working from home is not an option when a hot spot is ypur only form of Internet connection

Idk lots of buffering

Where I live, I don't have unlimited data. I would love to have unlimited data

I can't do my school work with no internet or run my scentsy business with no internet.

Very limited availability of internet use where I live in Carlton County. Cannot get broadband/ cable etc.

I used to have service through Wild Blue/ dish network but we all have phones with internet that is just as fast or faster so we cancelled the service. We may be business owners soon and would love to have affordable, faster internet available.

We are unable to stream video reliably and our kid does online schooling and that requires a good connection

At our business we have VOIP phones and with 10 employees using them, we have times when the Internet cuts in and out. We are adding a wellness center in Sept and that will need even more internet for users. We got a price for fiber and the price is extremely high to bring it to our business. We are worried that people in our wellness center will draw too much internet data and it will impact our other operations.

I don't have television service at my home. I stream all of my television programming. I have 3 children and two of them are using devices as well as myself and my wife. We have at a minimum of 4 devices being used at any one time throughout the day for tv, music, or for homeschooling- which we also do. I can't have a data cap (like Mediacom has) and my current provider (CenturyLink) only provides speeds up to 12Mbps, which isn't nearly fast enough.

It's more about patience and time efficiency than truly impacting my life. We are conditioned to have everything "right now", the impact would be less waiting.

74 (Final 12/18/2016) frustration due to buffering and freezing of pages due to advertisers video content that you cannot stop or opt out of.

We need higher and reliable speeds at home due to work, school and streaming.

I tekecommute. I work for a software company and at time the unreliable DSL speed has caused me to loose connection during client meetings. Even happened when I had 90 clients in a traing session I was hosting and recording. 45 minutes in... DSL dropped. I lost my call. Had to unplug the modem. Wait for it to reconnect. Dial back into the webex and apologize for the 5minute delay caused by my DSL dropping. Frustrating and unprofessional.

At home kids have tablets for school and they can't submit the homework because others are trying or it quits on them or something happens when trying to do the submission we have been told that we are to far from the connection box and I have to keep resetting my modem

With 4 school age kids at home and working part time from home we have to schedule who can work because our Internet can't handle all of us working simultaneously.

I can't watch Netflix at night and one other WiFi connected device at the same time.

Using computers is very slow

The kids have devices for school, but can't use them well at home because of terrible Internet connectivity.

I have to go to the public library because the speeds aren't fast enough for school work

At home its been a big issue as my child was doing online schooling and 1/2 the time couldn't use it or would get thrown out

I would love to watch more Netflix.

I tale online courses and I need faster speeds and reliability.

I do a lot of work online & my kids need Wifi for homework. Increased speed would make all of us more efficient at being able to complete our work.

My smart TV often has to reload as we're watching shows on Netflix or Amazon prime. At work we utilize electronic medical records, it's very important to be fast and reliable.

Kids argue over Internet time

Hard to watch Netflix or if its not working at all do homework

It would improve the time that we can get patients checked in exams ordered and processed.

At home it can be frustratingly slow, but I only pay for the slower package. I understand I can purchase a faster package but that is more expensive.

75 (Final 12/18/2016) I am currently doing some online classes and need to use Skype and Google Chat to meet with my classmates, my connection is slow and unreliable. When I go to download a program onto my laptop it can take hours or minutes due to the varying speed that occurs in my line. With more and more services online and households with multiple devices online, better service would be much appreciated.

Every one communicates by email or some form of internet...and I hate that. the internet keeps buffering when watching Netflix or tv shows on computer and it is extremely frustrating

Tv and computer

I've been going to college and do a lot of schoolwork online but the Internet service is not fast enough or sometimes doesn't work. We cannot with streaming movies with our current Internet. We were told our service is as fast as dial up so that's pretty bad.

Living in a rural area and having horrible internet is hard. Unable to connect for a decent price and going way over phone data.

Satellite internet us expensive, and unless very clear weather it is spotty. We only get 150gb per month and with kids school work, and my paperwork it gets tight, not much left for entertainment

I have only 2 options and both are excessively expensive with price increases every year and data caps. These companies have minimal competition and their pricing reflects it. I may not be able to keep my service much longer due to the cost

I only have the ability to get satalite internet no other service is available to me and it's very expensive we are currently unable to run the three devices in our home with any reliability

I often work from home and it makes my job very difficult when our service is disrupted all the time. cannot work from home when it comes to filing reports to the state or federal government, my sessions will time out before I can finish. at work it cannot keep up with the LEGAL gambling at my establishment

We use Internet a lot, like paying bills. If my husband is on the computer and I try to log into my lap top we usually have to reboot our internet box. Of course we have talked to Frontier with no luck. Each time we reboot we have to redo our Direct TV connection as well.

It has made it much harder to complete classes online while working. It has added to the stress of meeting deadlines and made homework take a lot longer than it would otherwise because I spend time waiting for pages or video lectures to load. I also have online labs for classes and it has made those take longer or sometimes not work correctly. I do not have a lot of extra time because I am also working so it make me miss sleep because I have to stay up later to complete my assignments.

76 (Final 12/18/2016) I had the opportunity to work from home, but there was no way I could as the internet speed is incredibly slow.

I have the opportunity to work from home occasionally but with the speed of our internet, I have to drive into work on the weekends because I cant count on our service. On a personal level.... we pay for netflex but we cant use it because it is buffering and shutting off all of the time.

Can't stream anything; takes a long time for anything to load.

For children it is imperative to have fast working Internet for their homework.

Will help.out my HS age children to submit/research/complete homework on their tablets

I earn my living providing online services so I support high speed service and early adopter strategies.

I am unable to have internet at home because there are no providers running lines for broadband. The cost for satellite is expensive with unreliable, slow speeds. I am unable to work from home with adds cost for travel and rent in urban area that can provide needs

It is slow at work some days, therefore making it hard to get your work done efficiently.

We have no internet service where we live on Freeman Rd. Our children have iPads from their school which at times requires the use of the internet which puts us in a bind at home-we either need to go somewhere that has WiFi or risk going over our data and paying extra fees.

There's no high speed internet available in my area.

We don't even have Internet at home making it hard to do school work and other things.

Very much, kids need for school, would useem daily. Have thought of moving becauservices of not having Internet services.

Not dependable hard to get work done... Not fast enough a lot of hold time

Speed is not the problem. We can not get reliable internet service with cell phones or other devices.

I use a mobile hot spot on my cll phone. Would love to have high speed internet

It's dumb.

We only have access to internet via mobile hotspot or use internet on our phones. We really need access to internet at home for our children's schooling needs.

I'm a heavy internet user; very frequent video streamer as well as a gamer. Usage-based billing is a detriment to my every day lifestyle and hobbies.

My kids cant do the things they need to cause we may run out at work it sucks because we lose bussness with no wifi

77 (Final 12/18/2016) At home it's fine most of the time. At work it's very slow. There are no business packages with higher speeds

I'm a online college student and I have had major difficulties taking tests and submitting assignments. Very frustrating when I live right in town!!

Video play within any specific app can be improved.

Photo/file downloads, multiple users at the same time

Our internet slows down at certain times and it would be nice to nice t have the slow down

Could work faster and get more done often avoid working from home due to connectivity, speed and limited access vs unlimited access now things take too long to download and refresh, often get an error message

Selling on evaluation would be more productive

Slow connection for all services, financial, education and entertainment. Often go to another access point to get things done. Other parts of the state and country are at much higher speeds. 2mb speed is almost 20 year old technology. In our home only 1 connected device at a time otherwise slows to dial-up speed.

At home, often unable to do streaming or downloading/uploading or run multiple things at the same time. i.e. Can utilize Netfilx but then have to limit other usage to avoid interruptions. Speed varies depending on weather, time of day, etc.

Cannot stream tv while husband is on computer for his work

If my computer is downloading updates or anything my speed is almost nothing to do anything else on the web at the same time. internet at home is slower, so I do not have the option of working from home for my job.

Only 1-2 people can use at a time

Currently, in my home we can either watch a show on Netflix ( our only pay television) or surf the Internet. We cannot do both at the same time. For that level of service (1.5mb) we pay $62/month which is the only internet solution that barely meets our basic needs. I can only update my computer/ devices at night so as not to interrupt any other member of the family's internet activity. And the situation will only become more untennable once our children grow up and need to use the Internet for homework and research.

I can't work or do online classes with my current Internet. Faster Internet would greatly improve quality of life for my family

Sometimes can't use cause it won't work. Way too slow

78 (Final 12/18/2016) There's nearly no way to enjoy internet at 2mb speeds much less how high the price is hiked. It's unreliable and unenjoyable but the only option. Any single other option would be extremely welcomed as long as there was no usage cap.

Just taking this survey took forever because of slow speed. Cannot take advantage of Internet based programs available with faster speeds.

We do not have access to many internet based programs that rely on higher speeds. Cannot operate internet management of a business in rural area. we are unable to get Internet at home and have to use our cell phones and pay a huge amount of money in order for our children to do homework since our school is all ipads.

I study from home, surf internet, and use Netflix. It's annoying to have to keep unplugging my modem, especially when I'm studying.

Can't do tests for school because the Internet is so inconsistent or do anything that requires a constant connection because the Internet drops so frequently

I have to do my online bill pay on my cell phone because my home Internet is too slow on my laptop. It's frustrating. My kids are in elementary school and have a lot of websites recommend by their teachers. It's hard only using my phone.

I pay all my bills online and I hate the stress of worrying about whether or not my internet service will be working or not. A few times I have paid my bills late because I can't get online.

My husband sometimes can't complete a form and submit it to the state before the net slows down and says "operation timed out."

Takes extra time to do anything and the amount of money to get decent is horendous

I could work from home more if speeds were available.

Unable to video stream. Would like ke this capability

I do not use it currently at home. Too slow

Long time to connect/connection issues & outages (internet unavailable during weather).

With faster more reliable internet I would be able to work from home instead of my 20+ mile commute to Duluth. My husband's job is becoming more online based and better internet would allow him to decrease the days he spends in Ashland, WI for work.

I work in Duluth. Faster internet would give me an option to work from home in Carlton County

I'm a documentary filmmaker who often works from home. I need faster Internet to do my job, download large video files, apply to film festivals, etc.

Internet slows when more than one device used. Can not use any internet television, i.e. Amazon prime video, Netflix

79 (Final 12/18/2016) My wife needs it for work. My kids use it for school and of course we would like to stream movies but can't

My grandchildren attend Esko Schools and are required to complete homework using the internet with their ipads and my internet service is very slow. I am a senior citizen on a fixed income and the price I must pay for my internet service is a major expense in my budget.

It is just too slow. Also there is a 10 gb cap on the service.

It affects college online horribly, and it restricts the opportunity to obtain work from home jobs online. We pay about $70 per month for horrible internet and it is not unlimited data so when our college work exceeds our usage it drops to almost dial up speed.

We would prefer to just have a service like Netflix for TV, but due to only having satellite internet with data caps we cannot and have to not only pay more for internet, we have to pay more to get TV as well. We also enjoy things like online gaming which we cannot not due currently. Also, we do online college and it limits videos we can watch for school and other tools online.

We would be able to stream movies and have better internet access for my sons school

Satellite is very slow. One person in our works from home sometimes and it's unreliable. It's effected by weather.

I own a mobile DJ business, and I purchase music online all the time. Faster download speeds would be great.

When my daughter is doing her homework and our internet is not fast enough to watch a video that is required is very frustrating

Having reliable internet is very important. My wife is currently going back to school and much of her work is completed online. She also has the ability to work from home on occasion, thus fast reliable internet is quite important to us.

My husband works from home and while current internet speeds are acceptable faster internet would be better. Also due to satellite connection he loses service in bad weather and can't work.

Our data cap is the problem. The ping is very high and makes it difficult for interactive or games and meetings.

Unless the service is fast and reliable I cannot work remotely from home. We also rely on Internet for movies/TV/gaming.

Can't stream tv. If I need to email a project to work. It sometimes is so slow it won't send

Contact with medical providers for ill Parent.

I work for UnitedHealthcare and work from home part time. Soon, my job requires full time work from home with no office space available. Due to my satellite Internet, I do not always have acess during storms and am forced to take the day off work. We can stream but again, that is unreliable as far as speed given any unfavorable weather conditions. Not to mention, between a high GB

80 (Final 12/18/2016) cellular data plan and a high GB satellite Internet plan, I'm paying over $300 a month to have sufficient Internet access to do my job and enjoy part time.

Kids can't apply for college or do homework at home. Can't check email regularly, we might as well not have it for how useful it is

Sometime can't connect to do banking or pay bills. Our data amount is used too fast! Can't afford to add more.

Alot

I'm unable to work from home

A lot of waiting. When more than one internet user are online, it takes forever.

Trying to watch vidios buffers real bad. Wait awhile for stuff to come up

I would spend less time in front of the computer.

I want to work from home but am unable to get high speed internet through fiber optic cable

Could get work done faster

Currently there is limited support for things like VOIP on providers' networks.

We moved to Carlton county because it's a great place to raise a family, but the county is extremely behind for Internet speed and it's hard to attract businesses and family's to the area when the the Internet is horrible. When need to invest in the area to keep our county a good one. i have trouble making dank memes slow downloads and uploads - overly full internet traffic - clogged lines

Would be able to get things done more effeciently.

I would be able to work faster and work more if my internet speed was faster. I am on a main road in carlton county and cannot believe there are not more options for me.

I teach at FDLTCC and have to load various lessons etc., and it takes a long time to have them load

We work from home and my husband is a student. The internet speed has caused many issues for both, as well as not being able to stream movies or having bad quality when we can.

Service is slow causing intermittent use for business including video conferencing. It is particularly slow when kids are home from school or after 3 on weekdays.

With 5 people living in household, there is not enough bandwidth to conduct business for all parties.

I office out if my home and have to answer billing questions to unhappy customers and they have to wait for me to answer their questions while the computer is loading and/or connecting.

81 (Final 12/18/2016) I stream movies and music, I teleconference and videoconference, my job requires using internet for everything

It is so slow it freezes up my pages and I am unable to work

I am unable to take on-line classes to update my professional degree requirements. It's frustrating.

There are more times then not I am unable to launch applications. I have also experienced emails not sending due to Internet speeds.

I'm a copy editor. Everything I do is internet based. If I can't submit my work, I don't get paid.

I telecommute for my company based out of Minneapolis so having fast, reliable internet is extremely important for me. If I do not have fast, reliable internet service at my home I would have to find an alternative place to work or find a new job.

We use moosetec out of moose lake because honestly its about the only thing offered to us. The price is ridiculous and the speeds are insanely slow. For example it is very rare that two people can even use the internet at the same time. (Facebook and Netflix..) This makes it difficult for us being that my husband works full time from home for optum health care, and I have a home based business online part time..we've been praying for a better option for years!!!

Im unable to utilize many of the services others in my field use. Such as webex meetings, VOIP, or internet based comms.

Dropped voice call over Internet during high level meetings.

I work for a software company based out East. I can't really work at home because the Internet is inadequate. I would like to be able to work at home.

Too slow for my home office my laptop freezes up cant get on etsy site

Higher speeds would a,low smoother streaming through Internet audio & video services. It would allow more efficient uploading and downloading if large files for our business.

Can not stream video for a long time use to much data usage. And buffer a lot

I am able to provide my clients the service they require without delays

Dropped service frequently. We have AT&T phone service and a Microcell which depends on internet, also. Virtually no bars without the Microcell.

Too slow for movie

Working and it chokes or crashes.

We run a farm business out of the home. Ninety percent of our communication with customers and advertising is via the internet. Kids will be using it for school, so soon we will have multiple people in the household trying to utilize the internet.

82 (Final 12/18/2016) I have to go into cloquet to use wifi to reach my clientbase how I need too.

I primaraly use internet for all connections, I do not have cable or a land line phone. Improved internet would positively impact many areas for me. work is fine. Home in Esko, Mediacom, slow and limited use available for high price difficulty paying bills online, researching stuff, watching internet tv

I telecommute. Internet service and speed is critical to me.

I had a very hard time completely my degree online due to poor internet speed. Starting my online business is challenging as well for the same reason!

Reliabilty is a key factor for our internet use. Since July (the week of the storms) reliability has been less. We were without internet for 1 week, then 2 weeks later, without it again for another week. We received a new router after the first storm but the second one isn't much better.

My time to spend working on the internet is limited, so because of slow speeds I'm unable to accomplish as much online as I would like to (such as creating and maintaining a web site, and utilizing sites such as Facebook for marketing).

I work at home for a major insurance company and half the time I can't stay connected to the Internet, it goes down frequently and is very slow when opening applications I need to preform my job

The speed is to slow and intermittent so I miss our on a lot of information on meetings

We go over our cell phone data limits every month because frontier is not always working at home and does not work everywhere in our house.

Slow internet, not enough band width, need a second line, but can't afford it.

I would love to get WIFI at an affordable price to look into expanding my career slow emails equals reduced production

Sometimes it takes awhile to start up and get to what I'm trying to do.

It takes a long time to download documents. I have difficulty connecting through business skype for meetings

The speed is so bad a complaint was filed with the attorney general. In addition it appears as though grants or federal funding has already happened to improve this issue. What happened to that funding?

Currently we have no options other then purchase internet service from a local provider off of hwy 18 or satelite service. They stopped running the fiber access less then quarter of a mile from our home. It runns through corn fields but not down our road which has over 20 residents. POOR planning on someones part. My children could benefit from service currenlty they can't get decent service to do homework assigned to them.

83 (Final 12/18/2016) streaming is so interrupted that i cannot use those services. even accessing news sites is frustratingly slow. slow at home - i tend to use internet less due to that

I am unable to stream tv and have been routinely restarting our connection as it is always going down. it is slow at home

We use it for both our business and personal. We down load movies, and music

I work from home sometimes and I need to work at a decent rate of speed

Wife works full time from home on-line. I sometimes work at home on-line. Web browsing is often slow in SE Carlton Cty.

Banking,work, schoolwork

I own a business and the slow speeds impact every day activities; many items must be processed electronically and the slow speed of the internet coupled with intermittent breaks in service cause delays and frustration. At home, unable to access certain trainings, live streaming programs, information and other data due to slow speed. cannot always get service, kids need to be connected with fast internet service for school, good communication works fine slow speeds cause applications ot time-out and cause unreliable service which affects my ability to do my work at home or on the job. Most entertainment is streaming online video now and it does not work properly at times with slow internet speeds leaving no option in that media.

Only option today is to get ATT wireless box on my counter. Expensive and spotty

Lack of the ability to bank electronically as well as stay up to speed on current events through social media as well as news outlets (papers, books ect) slow emails equals wasted time.

I just moved from Cloquet to Esko and our choice for internet provider/speed is centurylink's slowest available. Biggest impact is on entertainment costs, our only option for expanded TV is to go with a satelite provider as the internet speeds are too slow to support less costly streaming services. Not exactly a priority item in the grand scheme of things. I would love to have higher internet speeds but there are other things county funds should be directed at unless its a specific grant for this type of item.

We have to work from a wirless router and our company does not like that since its not as secure. Having faster internet with Ethernet cable would be a huge help.

84 (Final 12/18/2016) I am constantly researching things on the internet, slow speed is frustrating and holding me back.

Can't effectively telecommute at the slow speed today.

Internet so Slow , taking way to much time waiting for important information.

I work for an oncology pharma company. I work with people from all over the world. I need adequate and reliable internet service.

We are at the mercy of cell towers. We have to use our phones as hot spots. It works okay for doing things like Quickbooks Online but we can't stream movies usually. It eats up all our data.

I am unable to expand my business and often have to drive to two to use a wifi connection. I had to quit my online help desk job because of the poor connection.

More time wasted than getting work done because it's too slow

We have to hotspot off our phone to work on our online business

It's not the speed, it's the price and there isn't much to choose from...

Having access to the Internet greatly improves our lives.

It is very fast with 6 wifi users and computers use plus streaming movies

I you Internet all the time. My job requires me to be on call and I need to be able to get on and work when called.

Reliability is more of an importance than speed currently. At times we need to restart the router due to issues with connectivity. This makes working from home and school work challenging considering most Esko school work is done via iPads and computer.

$$$$$$

We use Internet on a regular basis and it is frustrating when I have only one option and they play games with you and it price goes up all the time. Especially when things are always going wrong and the Internet can be spotty. Calling in for supper is a pain.

Webpages can take forever to load, poor internet connection can cause assignments to not upload and poor connection makes me unable to play video games online

Our daughter is in online school so we NEED high speed internet daily or it greatly impacts her education. Unfortunately our current provider isn't as reliable as we would like. There are many times we go to use our internet and the speeds are much slower than what we are paying for. Also if the power goes out we will have no internet for the remainder of the day which really complicates our daughters schooling.

I often work from home, and even with 40MPS DSL I have to make sure nobody else is on our Internet at home in order to work effectively.

85 (Final 12/18/2016) With our children expected to do their homework on iPads now internet service is a must. With them trying to share the 1.5 mb/sec (the fastest speed Centurylink can get us) homework can take a long time.

A faster connection would allow for online video streaming and also would allow more opportunities to work from home.

At this time I am not able to work from home due to the slow speeds. If we had faster internet, I would be able to work from home 1-2 days a week.

I can work from home, but I am not able to as the internet speeds are not fast enough.

We seem to have to watch what is all connected, especially during the school year. Family used to do internet gaming, but DSL makes that virtually impossible for two people to do. With cable internet, we had 3 computers hooked up with little issues. DSL has slower speeds and due to location, no hope of increasing that.

We can't have more than one person on the wifi at a time or it makes it extremely slow

My internet is fine

See previous comments

We're retired. Our speed varies with the weather. It is almost impossible for my wife and I to be on the internet at the same time.

I am on the phone with CenturyLink at least once every week or 2 because our Internet isn't working.

My wife can barely work from home cause the Internet isn't fast enough.

I work from home during the week and Internet can be frustrating and unreliable making working difficult.

Can't work from home, only one person can use the Internet at a time, reason why we hav to have a separate plan on cellular phones, can't use the wifi on phones or u can't use it on the computer.

Kids homework, wife is a teacher and uses it a lot

We rarely use internet at home because it's too slow

You can't watch TV (Hulu/Netflix) if the kids are doing homework and using the internet. Also with the schools now having ipads and surface tablets as part of their required school supplies they need reliable internet to do their school work and when the last time is long 30minutes of homework turns into over an hour.

Slow speeds equals longer wait times for computers that I repair

I use the internet several times per day and also stream Netflix, etc to tv. Most of my purchases are through the internet so speed and reliability are an important concern.

86 (Final 12/18/2016) I do much communication, research and downloading by Internet and trying to send pictures to Shutterfly eg for family picture printing can sometimes take all night.

With Moose Tec the speed is ok in am but in pm and at night it is very poor.

My son is unable to do school work on his laptop it's slow and at times it's not sent

Current speed I am paying for is not what I am receiving all the time. Movies don't download fast. They sometimes stop to buffer multiple times.

Waiting.... Waiting... Waiting.... Buffering.... Buffering

I live stream seminars from across the country and my current speed makes that difficult

I can't use the option to work from home because my internet is so slow.

Having to wait for things to load is very frustrating. Also with multiple people on multiple devices slows things down even more.

E mail is good but anything else is so slow I even get cut off at times.

My kid have had issues opening things for college assignments.

My husband can't telecommute (work from home) because we can't get a reliable fast internet service where we live. And for home life we can't get Netflix or use our Amazon movie account because our internet doesn't allow for any of that. Barely allows us to check our email.

Cannot stream movies on Direct TV at all Wireless internet is slow and may take 30-60 sec to load a web page

Kids in school

It impacts me greatly! My husband and I have an ebay business as well as me being a direst sales consultant and the bad internet service makes it very hard and frustrating.

I use internet for online college courses. I have many lecture videos to watch. I can not have a data cap. My internet speed now is very slow to stream video.

Can't work Netflix or even any other features on our tv.

Unable to access programs r/t slow speed, frequent drop of wifi...mediacom has been out here several times with no improvement, had century link prior to slow to run programs

In a day in age where everything is technology driven it will help with everything. At this point it's difficult to take care of finances, for my child to do school work. He is issued an iPad from school and most his school work is done on it, makes it hard when our internet is so slow and not reliable. All of us turn off anything that is using Internet just so one device might work well.

Much more of our lives are being tied to the internet which having a slow connection really creates a ton if frustration.

87 (Final 12/18/2016) Downloading ANYTHING takes too long...or at times it never happens! Too many in rural Carlton County have their own businesses and are frustrated with the awful internet we have to deal with.

We were paying most regular billing electronically for many years, but now it's so unreliable we had to stop. Frontier has tried to fix it many times without success. Very frustrated!

Streaming more than one movie on Netflix at a time usually doesn't work. Have to view movies with low picture quality so it's not constantly buffering.

The ability to allow multiple people to work on a project at the same time, and to get information as fast as possible would be very helpful.

Only one family member can watch videos or use the internet to watch a movie or those types of services that we pay for at a time without interruptions or being kicked off.

Streaming virtually any video limits the ability to have other household members use. A speed of 1- 5 mb divided by 5 members is not enough. Our max speed availabe is 2 mb.

I am continuously having to unplug the plug back in the modem because of getting no service. I am paying for1.5 speed but getting .66 speed when it's working. Some days we can't get online at all let alone I can't stream other products I pay for such as Netflix and Amazon prime.

Take longer for kids to do homework

Anything I do is very slow with our Frontier internet

Constant re-buffering, & not being able to multi-task is very frustrating.

Kids homework is found online a lot. Hard to do sometimes speed is ok, it's more being limited to how much we use for the cost we pay.

I currently am a online student. Fast, reliable internet is a must for me (Video Conferencing, Large Data Transfers, etc)

Streaming music and movies...do I need to elaborate on this? Websites are putting more and more crap on each page, sometimes they take forever and a day to load...

DSL is more reliable than cable, but limited on bandwidth. Fiber would be reliable and fast. Improves network communications, streaming entertainment services, and offer more room to grow.

It's sufficient to perform basic tasks on the internet, such as browsing and watching videos. However, larger tasks like watching multiple videos or large file downloads can be slow or problematic.

Things freeze up when you are researching or playing games.

Sometimes unable to stream or FaceTime

88 (Final 12/18/2016) We game and watch stream movies. Also we are purchasing land in Blackhoof (barnum, mn), and there iis no internet provided t in that area.

My speed is ok now but with everything going to the Internet I will have issues in the coming years.

I need it to work from home

It is way to slow it slows down progress.

We use Internet for tv...and video streaming because we can't get cable and can't afford satellite dishes high costs. It's nice for retirees. When I worked higher speeds would have been truly appreciated when I worked from home.

Slow downloads, slow streamin

It doesn't work like it suppose to.

Internet gets slow at times, but then works sometimes really well. Upgrades needed to provide fast and consistent Internet.

There's more then one person living here When we are online It's veryslow

Doesn't really

My son is a gamer. He says that the constant drops in performance can be very frustrating. It goes from 12Mb and 30 PNG to 0.2 Mb and 600 PNG. i do banking

It's just too expensive.

I have many medical needs and with an unstable connection it's hard to communicate

Home business, have to adjust times of doing business due to speed of interne5

We use Netflix and are full time students. We need the Internet and it doesn't always work. The slow speeds limits us to what we can do, and the price really strains our bank account

Cuts out a lot. Sometimes slow. New box, but still need to reset it every other day.

Slow with more users. Lots of technical problems

Slower speed equals less productivity

It would save time.

When several people access mobile devices our internet speed diminishes

I work from home (company is based in California, but I work/live in Esko), so I am using the Internet all day. Slow speeds can interrupt client conference calls and webinars, and slow speeds significantly reduces productivity when waiting for files to download.

Some

89 (Final 12/18/2016) Research, study & entertainment it doesn't

Downloading--watching different items on internet

At home for school work it's very expensive for Internet to use wifi for their ipads

Paying bills on line Filling out anything can take too long Netflix doesn't work well or other things I'd like to use on my smart tv

Filing our income taxes on-line is always frustrating. We can't always do our taxes when it is convenient for us because either the internet is so slow, it takes forever for pages to load or it doesn't work at all.

We stream a lot of movies, and the playback is constantly stopping. Just a lot of waiting for things to load at peak times. we wouldn't have to run outside to get service!

It does not impact me.

I've done college courses online and have stopped doing them, I'd say it was at least 75% because my internet made me so angry when it would either go to slow or not work to turn in things or do research. My parents live out of town and we like to send pictures of our child to there email but often times we have problems with that due to our internet. I need Internet on my laptop for work and often times have to go to other places with better speed/access just to get my work done. Our internet access moves at a speed that makes a snail look like a rocket. It's pathetic

As an owner of the football team, we need to be on the internet talking to players and staff, submitting applications, creating videos, and more. On a personal level, facebook is a major thing in our house!

Games

Be able to get on medical portals quicker

We use the Internet all the time.

We use it for paying bills, my wife's business, and my kids school.

Takes forever to download. Limits to the number of devices connecting to wireless before speed if affected.

It's pretty good

Time is money and I don't have time for slow internet. we can't use 2 internet devices at the same time. It is frustrating.

I work from home as a realtor. It would be great to have a superior service provider

90 (Final 12/18/2016) I could remote into work and work at home part of the week but because our internet service is so unreliable I cannot. I work 45 minutes from home. It would save me a lot of time, travel and money if I were able to work part of my week from home.

I am a student and need reliable fast sevice.

Slow streaming music & movies. Very long time to send text messages with photos attached. all i need works great

We homeschool so it would help so much to have reliable fast service for classes and streaming.

Slow to connect to personal banking sites and if I worked from home it would not be fast enough to do the required job.

Unable to connect much of the time. Slow/ stalls out other times. Not fast enough to stream.

I sometimes wait for several minutes waiting for a web page to download.

No reference in the survey (11.) to wireless providers/moose-tec

Often times we have to use our cellular data because our wifi isn't working or is too slow for what we want to do

Goes out for no apparent reason. Very slow when using Tv and cell phones, not fast enough to watch direct TV, have to record and watch later.

Most times it is almost impossible to use and Frontier just does not care

If connected to wifi on my iPhone at home, there are times that my phone goes to data as wifi goes "not connected"

We are retired so it would be just for us personally.

Without DSL or unlimited data I am unable to download or stream video.

At home it's not a big deal. At work we can't even use the Internet on one computer and anything else

It kicks me offline. I am unable to steam Hulu because it can't keep up. Screen freezes or it stops playing completely.

Pretty much do everything on PC and it takes forever to do banking etc...

Way better than Wild Blue satellite service

Limited Data

Slow, need more speed.

I use it for Netflix and school and to pay bills

91 (Final 12/18/2016) At home, messaging someone about selling something and the pages won't load- sometimes making plans is time sensitive! Especially with two kids.

It slows down my work

My wife works from home some and needs reliable internet which we don't have.

If there was charter I could work from home

Limits users

On the occasions when I need to work from home, basic projects take longer to complete due to the slower internet service at my home compared to my office in Duluth.

All is fine as is

Daughter can't do homework, often times. Can't watch Netflix

I have fast internet at work, but home internet is very frustrating. I also have a home business and am very frustrated with my present provider for this as well.

At home, if all family members are online and someone is using a fair amount of broadband, is slows down for the rest of the family. That is somewhat frustrating. I work for Carlton County and a lot of my job depends on the internet as I use web based services.

Due to being a grad student and at the moment 100% of my course work is online. With slow and unreliable internet services it makes it very difficult for me to complete assignments and tests at home in Cromwell. There are weeks at a time when the internet isn't working well enough for me to be able to even open the course content I then end up having to drive into Cloquet or to Campus in Duluth to complete my assignments and tests.

I have to go out of town to my son's house to do things I need done I do not have the time to wait and then have our service kick outi

Some of my work must be done from home using the Internet. Because of the speed (or lack thereof) I am forced to use my cell phone data instead of the Internet I am paying for.

Unsure

Need faster service due to son in school,

Online homework takes a long time.

We are not able to stream movies, etc.

Unable to do any research whatsoever and shopping online is near pointless. We have Netflix but are unable to stream because the Internet is so slow

Can't do anything on the Internet at home. Even just trying to load a page takes forever.

All schoolwork is on an IPad. I have had to drive to a building that has Internet for schoolwork.

92 (Final 12/18/2016) I rely on Internet for communication to family and my husbands customers.

Downloading info

The only unlimited high speed internet in the Cromwell area is Frontier, but they don't provide service where my home is located.

Don't dare use it to often. Goes over limit to quick. I go to library and use theirs

We have struggled for about 20+ years first dial up. Now a moble hot spot thing from verzion cell phone is also will spotty out here with the service sometimes fading in & out

Only able to get dial up or spotty satalite. Unable to do online gaming worth those.

Currently have satellite internet. It is expensive and not that fast. Thick cloud cover, forget getting a signal. Cannot get Moose Tech out of Moose Lake. Cell phone coverage is spotty and not adequate for Internet. No service for broadband down our road. I have heard of places off the Gunflint Trail that have three houses down the road, they have broadband!

I can not get internet service on my computer or cell phone at the house.

Don't have it at home because it was very slow!

Our access to the Internet is very slow limiting the access to data rich sights. We get timed out often which is very frustrating.

I need to get internet in my home as my children are getting older and need to do more projects online.

Broadband Internet is so slow in my neighbor hood (big lake area) no one even purchased it.

Cannot skype, stream or do basic internet work/play

Can't use cell phone in my house, run a 288 fiber count + to the nearest AT&T tower!

We can't get DSL at our home, only satellite. We've lived here for 7 years without it, and want it desperately!

No speed no Internet. I have 4 kids 3 school age they NEED it.

My kids cannot do homework. I had to quit my transcription business because my internet service was fast enough or considered compliant with privacy laws.

Slowwwwwwww

I had Hughes net and it was very slow. I discontinued Internet services about four months ago because of that.

I have been trying to get century link for years. Everyone else around me has Internet but yet I can't seem to.

We don't have it now because it is so slow - just use my work computer.

93 (Final 12/18/2016) I have 8 kids at home it will help for school.

Would be a heaven send being that we can't get dsl here and there is no other decent internet... have to take my kids to library to use the net for school and have to have them stay late to study as well

I can only get internet service through satellite services. I can't even get DSL through the phone company. No cable service either.

I don't have internet access at home except on my phone. I would love to have PC internet access so I could go back to school.

Unable to work from home, stream movies, and surf the web.

I have children that can't do their homework at home and have to go to an auntie's house or stay after school. I also need for work and have to use my cell interned and it used alot of data.

All that is available is satellite, very unreliable I don't have internet at my home address

I am a telecommuter and need fast Internet with more bandwidth. I could get century link but a line is cut on my County Road. Century link will not fix the line on there cost. They want to charge 1400.00 to fix it. Even if they fix it is hear the service is slow.

Can't do anything on my internet

I can't even get Internet other then by satellite and it's slow and you only get a few mps

Retired, so really just an annoyance when it's slow.

Our road is called a dead road so there is no landlines in so there is NO internet

It impacts my life a great deal, because there are no high-speed internet options at my home address. As a student and with a husband who needs internet for his employment position, this is a large inconvenience for us and makes completing homework difficult and expensive.

Don't have any

The speed is okay on my phone but it's inconvenient on the screen size.

We do not use a computer at home, only our phone, we can only get internet through"Hughes Net" or something like that, too expensive, and not reliable.

Internet currently so slow you can not stream or download

Costs me a lot of money.

It's expensive to use our mobile package. It's the best option for where we live for now.

None offered

I work at a business in Cromwell and the lack of service/speed makes for some very kind days. Because need constant internet to upload and download data to our mobile construction sites. 2. I

94 (Final 12/18/2016) have had internet service at home and it is too slow that is why I switched to mobile data but it is so expensive would like another option fdg

Faster internet would be appreciated because when you live a busy life, you don't want to have to wait for the internet to load. Also many of us use Netflix & it requires a faster speed internet for watching thier programs. we are on satellite and the speeds will go down as we meet our limit and the only way to get more is to pay more money

My wife and two kids are currently taking online collage courses! We are constantly being dropped while in the middle of exams and webinars.

I HAVE A HOTSPOT THROUGH AT&T AND IT'S SLOW AND GB'S ARE LIMITED.

I have okay internet right now, but it is really expensive. We are thinking about canceling it :(

Our internet service is slow and often spotty due to weather conditions, making it unreliable for day to day business and useless in emergencies.

Absolute crap, totally unreliable, slow and expensive.

Streaming videos makes Internet slow for anyone else trying to use it unable to stream or have more than one device on the network

Some times things seem slow to down load and other times it isn't.

I have no internet at home

Currently have Moose-Tec at our home. Pay approx $50 per mo. Speed not always suffient and we have to limit number of devices running at one time or very low response. Able to utilize Netflix at current speed with interupptions occuring rarely of other streaming not being done on other devices. At this point, not willing to pay a higher price for faster services as we just make due with what we currently have.

My family includes a small business owner, college, and high school students. We use the internet often and would appreciate faster service.

In middle of night wait time is not terrible. Service is very limited and slow during the day. By the way it is getting worse every day.

I am a full time student who relies on fast, reliable internet service and all of my bill paying and banking is done online. it is definately not the speeds of fiber optic. needs to fund frontier for higher speeds towards cromwell and wright speeds are barely able to stream netflix.

95 (Final 12/18/2016) very much

Unable to stream videos due to constant buffering. No faster options currently available at our new home. 😟

I do not work, mostly use the internet recreationaly, so minimal impact. use it to research new ways to perform my construction jobs slow for research

It's slow, we live in the coumtry. we dont have internet because we cant get it high speed.

Slow internet

It's slow we have several users in the house so we have a lot of wait time.

1.5mbs service VERY slow. at home it seems to takes abit to load even tho I currently use SCI its ok can be slow very slow

I have a large family and everybody is mon the network at the same time and it is really mslow.

It's hard for my son to do his homework.

It is too slow to even want to use

5 people in a household all on at same time

My children and I have all of our school work and work materials on a computer or Ipad. Accessing this easier would allow for quicker completion of homework and work jobs.

Our children only have access to internet per mobile phone service

We currently use our cell phones for internet able to surf many local webpages wifi included in lease, one router for building, extremely slow

At this time, we have been told it is difficult to find an internet provider that would come out to where we live.

My children have issues keeping up with homework projects and researching

Everything takes soooo much time.

96 (Final 12/18/2016) Can't download very well

We have a large family including four children. When all are working on the internet for school at the same time, speed is important. takes forever to do anything

It has a great impact on our familys school and work life

Dapper Dan everything is high tech from my job to daily life unable to access internet for work or recreational purposes because it doesn't connect

As an online gamer who downloads large files regularily the current speeds offered in the rural areas is unsatisfactory. when I was self-employed the slow internet service I got we extremely prohibitive don,t hoave it home work for children able to order my Watkins products online news information i dont have none at this time. do not have inter net where i live

We can only get satellite internet so don't use it at all due to that i do not have internet avaiable to me at home

I work from home and fiber optic internet would dramatically improve my productivity. Additionally, HD streaming services would provide superior entertainment for cheaper.

Slow to get things done

Video services lag. Business opportunities are Iimited.

I live off Hwy 61 between Hwy 210 and Mahatowa and do not have access to fiberoptics because the phone company has not run it up my road.

We currently do not have internet at home because we cannot get high speed internet where we live. We have neighbors 1 mile down the road that have it because they have not ran the service to our place yet and not sure when that will happen. We can get satellite internet but they are expensive and are limited. We have kids that are starting school and we need internet at home,

97 (Final 12/18/2016) desperately. If i get an opportunity to work from home I will not be able to because I do not have internet. Internet thru my cell company would be way to expensive and again limited.

I find that with 5 family members attempting to use the same DSL line, the video capabilities are hindered significantly.

Slow download speeds, poor connections

Several family members accessing internet at the same time slows service down so much it is difficult to do work or use internet. buffering videos, connectivity issues--often sporadic connections on a daily basis

When we have more than one person using a computer or iphone in our home it slows down our service at work if I am issuing a document and the customer is waiting that is unpleasant- at home it is irritating to pay a lot of money for a service that is not optimum

The internet and its speed is becoming more and more important as we rely on it for both work and personal issues. with faster speeds of internet I would be able to streem security cameras from work

Do a lot of ordering online and live stream

Slower internet speeds reduce my efficiency at work and reduce my free time at home to do the things I'd like to do in my spare time.

At my home we CANNOT get internet in Carlton County only if we paid for Hughes net service

I don't think the speeds are that bad now. Sometimes it seems like it get a bit "bogged down" but that could just be the provider service that I purchased.

While taking college courses, the speed of the internet presented an additional challenge compared to my classmates who live in the Metro Area (Twin Cities)

Slow and expensive! When son needs internet to complete homework, we go to a relative's house that reside in Duluth.

Slow

I do not have internet at home. I don't have a land-line telephone and live in a VERY rural area.

When I'm looking up information, it saves me time by allowing me to find the information in a timely manner.

Limited providers, expensive, and slow. I'm ready to drop our service and just use our cellular phone for internet purposes.

The only internet service available to me is delivered via satellite or cellular. Satellite was too expensive. Cellular's reliability is not good, the speeds are slow, and we are limited by a data cap

98 (Final 12/18/2016) which we go over almost every month. When working from home, the sketchy service often prevents me from doing my work. i am able to work from home when needed because of a quality internet connection, my family does most of its television watching via streaming services, we also stream music at the house and the kids utilize the internet connection for school work

Slows things down. Online curriculum takes minutes to load per min

If Carlton County had a faster Internet service available, what opportunities would that open up for your business to provide new products or services or reach new customers? Would it impact any opportunities for your family? lots

It would make it easier to market our business because we could use more photos and video content. Currently it takes too long to load large files, especially video, so my spouse has to do it from her work in Duluth. Other collaborative tools such as webinars would also become available in a way they are not now, allowing me to take advantage of continuing education opportunities that will help my business grow and adapt.

I could have an office in my home or in Carlton or Cloquet instead of driving to my office in Duluth. My publishing companies could be much more efficient because I would be spending less time waiting for my computer uploads/downloads, and I would be able to get more done. My family would be able to use their devices for fun and education without the squabbling over who's using all the band width! Happier wife and kids!

Yes video conferencing would be possible

Yes of course , I have customers tell Me all the time I can't hear you This is pathetic being just 17 miles from Duluth

It would greatly improve our business.

Probably not likely to open additional opportunities but would make some work more timely and efficient.

It wouldn't affect our business - we're a school district and have very good broadband. But it would affect many of our families

We would consider it as an alternative to what we have.

99 (Final 12/18/2016) We would use it more for kids' education. We need it for our business - doing more online merchandise, working remotely. we can't get cell signals here most of the time... would be nice to have a dependable internet option for all communications

This would speed up everything

We would be able to bid more jobs as well as grow our company and keep more jobs in the county. We cannot even share files over vpn

Prompt reaponse for homework completion

I don't have a business.

It would allow me to expand a home business.

None.

Internet at home

NA

None. Butt out.

Working at home would be an option.

Idk unknown

Don't know - work at CMH

Cheaper tv, phone bill, better school services for online students who work full time and live in the country. More learning opportunities for the children.

It would be a great benefit

See above.

All the opportunities from the previous question would greatly be improved.

My business internet is very fast. Impact on my family would be minimal being we already have internet at a reasonable speed.

Our residents have extremely slow or no internet options other than expensive and spotty satellite or cell phone data plans. Our families have a hard time with students accessing internet at home and our small business owners have difficulty finding a speed that allows them to promote their business. Frustrating when you see advertisements for all these enhanced speeds and our residents are still living in the dark ages. With our proximity to Duluth and Cloquet it seems silly. We have a hard time attracting new business into our community as well.

100 (Final 12/18/2016) Business speed is fine, but reliability is not there. Home speeds are too slow now, we stream a lot and with kids doing a lot of school work. yes

It would definitely improve customer service and help reduce excess office hours.

Easier for kids to do homework, easier/faster for me to do research

Our family could do jomework at home and I could also work from home

I could actually do school work at home

Refer to number 27

Students would have more opportunity to practice using internet based programs at home & the school may be able to allow more programs to be run at the same time.

Faster tv/Internet at home. To be honest, I don't think it would change a whole lot at my place of employment.

We would be happy

Downloading movies music

Just convenience

I have a lot of friends who work from home and are impacted quite negatively by the poor quality of internet available out in the rural portions of the county hinders growth and prohibits people from buying land and moving to the rural areas.

More accessibility. more members can use internet at the same time.

My husband loves to watch movies but our Netflix is very slow it would enable us to bring in more taxable revinue

It would greatly improve life in general for my family. It would help me reach the goal of improving my education to get a better job to support them easier as well as less stressful. It also opens up all kinds of opportunities not only for continuing education, but even job opportunities. It also makes it easier to communicate with family that does not live here. Right now video chatting is hard to do, but with faster internet it would be possible.

Ability to research at a faster rate of speed. Would save time waiting for things to download.

More services. More products. More markets. Better online conferencing

More efficient use of time and equipment

Possibly

101 (Final 12/18/2016) We would be able to do the things online that we need to do.

Could do school work! Only gave on our internet phones. Out kids are behind on technology. My husband needs Internet for work and can't from home.

It would just make life happier

Would help with my son's learning and help keep in contact with family better.

We would definitely use it on a daily basis for school purposes. We also bank online and it would be much easier than trying to access on our phones.

Unlimited use would be great and if it was cheaper and faster that would also be great I would do anything to stop using what I have at both places

N/A

Right now there is a monopoly if you want high speed Internet in cloquet as mediacom is the only choice. Having competition would make more competitive pricing and also make the services offered better.

Unkn

Better streaming for my students and fellow teachers

I could get more done homework faster, could work from home more multiple family members could access different internet services at the same time

I don't own a business

Not in business, but a faster service may present opportunities to grow a business. Education is important to all of our children, To be able to provide all of the knowledge and services that faster Internet will provide will no doubt open doors for our youth and provide an atmosphere condusive to growing small and large business. Internet is this generations phone and mail service. Their are very few aspects of modern life that cannot be accomplished online. Slow speeds are the telegram of the phone age. We as a county must invest or be left behind with our phones in the digital high speed Internet age.

Current service sufficient for business. Faster service would be more efficient at home to operate multiple programs at the same time without delays. We live in a rural area and unless we were to purchase a dish/satellite, our only option is Moose Tec. We currently have no land line. Initial investment for our Internet was near the range of $1,000.00. Had to have a telephone pole put it to mount internet antenna on in order to reach over trees or would have had no service.

We would be able to stream movies at home and use face time, Skype.

Would be able to provide resources to customers

102 (Final 12/18/2016) If Carlton county had a fiber/super fast cable connection that could reach my home, I would consider starting a web-based business.

Working from home would save on gas money, wear and tare on vehicles, and more family time.

I could use it to access all of the Internet, not just part of it

It wouldn't affect my business but might open up options for us to work sensibly from home more often thus saving on expenses like daycare and gas.

Use it to manage business away from office setting. Children would have same access to Internet based programming as urban youth and the same is true for rural business and individuals. It is becoming a significant disadvantage.

Creation and management of web based business opportunities. Ability to work from home on occasion rather than go into town. Children get access to programs only available in urban areas. we are having trouble finding a location for our company to build a new building due to Internet availability in the Esko area.

I am an independent consultant for Scentsy and I operate my business through my phone. It's VERY difficult. Faster home Internet is just not affordable right now

Movies, share photos with family

No, pleasure only

I would be able to do online baking, get pictures of my kids etc.

We could be on the internet more reliably

Faster internet would allow our family to stream movies and tv, and make more online purchases. We use the internet for maps, hunting/fishing licenses, store hours, booking campsites and other travel.

I've been thinking about a new business that I would like to start but I've been hesitant because of internet reliability.

It would make my career as a documentary filmmaker more viable. I have to do a lot of my work at an office in Duluth. I'd rather do more work in Carlton County.

My wife could work from home more. Making family life easier for all of us. I work 24 HR shifts and that can make it difficult for my wife to work and get the kids to their activities

Yes, the internet would allow me to communicate more effectively and my grandchildren to become more successful with their school work.

Faster downloads, May use for Netflix, faster YouTube videos.

It would impact my family greatly. It would provide better opportunities.

103 (Final 12/18/2016) It would allow us to utilize all the online educational tools for online college, which we are not able to right now.

Not aure

It would speed up my work.

It would make doing homework and other things less frustrating

It would allow for my wife to do more of her work at home, allowing for greater flexibility in her work schedule.

Our current Internet alone is expensive, so the biggest opportunity would be cost savings with even better service.

We don't have a business. My son would really like it and I would enjoy being able to attend on- line support meetings from the VA concerning my husbands care.

Possibly in the future.

I had two children in college and they would have to go somewhere else to get decent internet to send in their papers. I am thinking about taking some online classes but unsure if I could complete the work because of unreliable Internet. It is the only think available here

It would be very beneficial. More cost effective, and more reliable would be greatly appreciated.

My work from home position would be more productive. My part time sales jobs could benefit from live videos and increase sales.

Working on college applications would be possible, keeping in touch with long distance family, Skype with nieces, list goes on

Yes, could do some work from home

Yes

Yes I would be able to work from home

Convenience would be greatly improved.

NA

I could work from home and not lose my job

Yes. We would have more access to the web for student purposes and work needs.

More productivity at work

Streamline backups and voice/video services.

Improve efficiency

104 (Final 12/18/2016) Carlton County needs to invest in this area to try and catch up with other parts of the state. It will attract businesses and help keep the people you have in the county. Another question that should be asked is will this help you continue to live in this county, and the answer is yes.

I would be able to make better memes

Yes it would, there is many times that they would let me work from home but the speed is to slow to connect to the server at the hospital.

Most of my business is done via the internet - I home office as do all of my employees - faster/cheaper internet would help my business to grow and make for more efficient work - higher profits for my business . . .my kids are utilizing more internet for school activities and homework - higher speed internet would allow better learning experiences - rural broadband needs improvement!

I wouldn't lose patience with the speed; and wouldn't worry if it's going to work today or not; wouldn't have to worry about dropping out of an on-line seminar and then trying to reconnect up again...... it's endless.

I would be able to process more work which would resolve more people's problems.

Being able to perform better for students.

We would be able to work on building our new website and other advertising. My husband wouldn't lose school credit due to not being able to get online too e-mail teachers and submit assignments.

All above would be addressed! Please make it happen!

Time reduced to conduct business means higher productivity. This spurs the opportunities for higher profit.

It would be a great improvement to customer service for me! We are not able to use our Roku streaming stick without a lot of patience. Movie starts then stops to load . Frustrating!!

It would make performing my job a lot easier, and without having to relocate if the internet isn't performing to satisfaction.

It would because I could get more done

E bay sales could open up. Currently the service is too unreliable for business sales.

I would be able to work less hours, I have to make up my time lost due to my current Internet down time. It would be nice to work 8 hours a day. Currently I put in an average 10 to 12. I may also be promoted, that has been mentioned several times, which means more money for our family.

It would make our everyday work lives, and leisure time much more enjoyable and less stressful.

I would be able to put down permanent roots here. Otherwise i may have to move.

Yes

105 (Final 12/18/2016) Faster Internet would allow Carlton County to attract new businesses that are Internet based. This is clean industry that could benefit Carlton County immensely.

Dramatic increase in income be able toget product out there

It would allow a more diverse package of services including video demonstrations and previews.

My parents run a business from home and has to upload blueprints and it takes too long.

I would be able to increase my online business which would impact my income and provide better financial opportunities for my family

It would speed up my work.

Faster service better turn around.

Yes it would let us get work done faster and have more free time

It would allow us to do get more work done faster for our business. For the family I am concerned about when they are in school and we have multiple people in the family needing to be connected and using the internet. Our internet works perfectly fine if one person is accessing it at a time. More than that becomes a problem. Thank you.

If we had fast, reliable internet service it would help my business so much! I would be able to get in touch with my clients faster.

As I work in town I have adequate coverage, coverage as I understand it is lacking for both wireless and wired in rural areas

IDK

I would be able to stream movies with my family. I would be able to complete the online work for my business and personal life with far more ease and less stress!!

Almost all information now requires internet access; especially of concern to us is communication with our physician since we have some very worrisome medical concerns and often need copies of medical tests. Currently our business customers call or text on the cell phones.

It would open up more opportunities to market my business and allow me to use my time more efficiently.

My daughter attends barnum high school and almost all her assignments,have to be completed online. She can not use the Internet until I am done,with work which may be late as we can have us both using the Internet at the same time.

Yes

It would be a huge impact. We would save money, argue less, feel less stress, get more work done, etc. We have more arguments about the internet not working.

106 (Final 12/18/2016) I may work solely from Home. Leaving less of an environmental footprint not commuting

I would be more productive.

Fluent, more efficient work.

I could work from home more. Improve the quality of life

Yes we could have our company pay for our internet to work from home. That is a financial need.

I need answers about local products, services and locations. It would be great to have better and faster connections.

Could effectively telecommute and access information highway

Yes

Fast and reliable is needed.

My son would be able to use a computer to do his homework. I would consider opening another home-based business.

It would open up a great deal of options for me.

I would be able to work from home more vs driving 45 minutes each was to go to my office.

It would ease the burden on the internet

I would be able to work from home with confidence I would be able to serve my clients successfully with better internet reliability and connectivity.

Convienance

It would help in a lot of ways because we can actually access things on the Internet in a timely manner

It would impact us if there was another service available that had faster more reliable internet at the current or lower rate we now pay.

It would, but I think private companies should fund this and would be opposed to the County subsidizing this. These companies make billions and it should not come at the expense of taxpayers already dipping deeper into their pockets to subsidize schools.

Homework could get done. Internet searches could actually get done. Entertainment possibilities would open up (streaming movies & music) With slow internet you just don't feel like spending time looking or doing anything on the internet.

Yes, there would be a large impact on my family, I could work from home more, expand on business opportunities, increase my salary, my kids could do more school work and research from home, currently they need to do this from school or another location.

107 (Final 12/18/2016) We consider creating a home business/farm when we retire, it would definitely impact our decision process as far as we could do our own website servicing, instead of having someone else do it. We would be able to handle any expansion of our hobby/fruit farm in the way of technological advances.

My kids would be able to use it for homework more and I could research my business related subjects better

It would benefit the entire county

All 4 kids could do their school work at the same time.

It would depend on what the products were. My wants/needs are somewhat different than most people. I'm not in love with cell phones, so I'm tied to a land line.

We order a lot of goods via amazon.com and other places so we need reliable service. Please offer fiber optics to us!

My wife could work from home full time.

I would potentially be able to work from home full time allowing more time to commit to family and the community.

N/A

It would sure help a lot of homeschoolers

It would allow me to take more computer repair clients

At this point in time I am not using internet for business but do hope to have an internet dependent business in the future.

Our family would definitely enjoy faster Internet Service, but as I said our neighbors, who rely on it for their work, would be able to stay here year round, adding to the economy of the area. I'm sure that there are many more people who would live in the area if they knew they would have reliable Internet service for their businesses and for working remotely.

Homework, downloads, happy family

It would allow me to stream from home rather than my office in Hermantown

Above

It would just make things a lot easier

Business would defiantly improve!

I would be able to access and use my photo editting programs better.

More than 1 person could be on the Internet at once

My husband would be able to work from home. It would make our family very happy

108 (Final 12/18/2016) definitely as I stated above

My children's opportunity for learning.

It would help with our family business to download our loads of everyday faster. It takes hours to do it via our internet. But if we use our phones data it gets done in about 30-45 minutes.

I work from home on a laptop, it would help me tremendously! My employer is in the metro, the extra 5 hours of home time I have daily v's drive time is detrimental to my family!

It would be nice to have another option, something without data limits. And nice to be able to allow everyone in the house to be connected.

Quite possibly it could.

#1 - it would save on medical bills for the darn high blood pressures that happened dealing with internet!

Living out of town, I have researched many business opportunities at my place of residence, but the fact is, any future enterprise would have to depend on reliable Internet service to succeed.

Possibly

As the Cloquet school districts shifts to a 1 to 1 initiative, the internet became that much more important to their ability to learn and receive the curriculum. Books are being phased out, so the internet is a necessity for my children to succeed in school.

Our children use the internet for homework, I use it for SkillSoft and educational things for work. A faster service will greatly improve it for me as well and save a lot of time for my family. Also for our personal use, we would be able to watch movies again without having to pay extra and rent them from Redbox.

Certainly would help 3 kids for homework. Plus it would increase cost saving in other area. Such as tv and phone service. I currently use internet based tele service but quality is poor but passable. Every major city offering 1 gb fiber is growing. What is our county doing?

It would make life easier here for us here to be able to watch netflix

NA

It would definitely help with streaming tv shows since we currently use the internet for television.

Fast reliable internet service is only available within city limit of Cloquet. Once you are in more rural areas the quality/speed drops significantly.

N/A

Do not own a business. It would offer more competition and options in general. It may provide another provider in my rural location.

Maybe I would be able to work from home.

109 (Final 12/18/2016) Yes

It would allow for better opportunity for my family.

Not mine, but many of my friends

We would have reliable internet then

Yes

Not really

It would impact our son a lot. And us when we can't get a web page up or watch our streaming service.

It would help me keep in touch with my family and drs

Able to respond to needs sooner and do better research on products

It would make the quality of life better and less stressful

Faster service

School and work

Not sure

Does not apply

Faster more reliable internet is needed

It would bring peace of mind to be able to go on the Internet whenever we want to or need to do something on-line, anytime we want rather then only IF the Internet decides to work.

Not sure. I have considered doing some online college courses but would not consider it with our current service.

We are retired but use our Internet quite alot.

Are you kidding? NONE

Would make it so my small business could work online better and more efficiently. Would make just browsing something worthwhile again, and would help my child do her homework at home with her mother and I to help, not have to bring her some place with better internet

If we were able to get new internet, we would be able to complete things faster and not be glued to the computer to make sure things sent. facetime,Skype etc

Don't know

It would allow us to be able to use it with out wondering if it's going to work.

110 (Final 12/18/2016) educational

None at this time

It would be great for community and economic development. It's a no brainier everyone wants faster internet.

Yes. My wife is a teacher therefore she could use the internet at the same time the kids are doing their school work.

Media com has been sufficient for the most part, but if a better option is available for the same price I'd be interested

See above

Work from home often. Need access to company servers. forget it

Work from home easier

Yes ! Would make using our devices at home efficient and possible.

It would reduce my level of frustration and it would likely keep me from continuing my search for a new tv provider. I find my mediacom tv service to be fine. But the Internet service is horrible.

I have a document pertaining t this issue, but no way to attach it to the survey form. [email protected]

No business. More enjoyable tv and internet usage.

Most definitely

Personal use.

It would make the clients I serve happier

I could work from home without interruptions.

More usage

Get things done faster

Not sure

I make products to sell from home. I use the Internet for a part of my work. I would be more efficient if every time I actually had the time to work, my internet actually worked.

None

My wife needs fast, reliable internet for her work. I need it for less compelling reasons, but it's still very important to me. My wife and I are very dissatisfied with our internet service!

To work from home

111 (Final 12/18/2016) Elderly do'care

NA

No

I don't know

If Carlton County had faster internet services it would have a great impact but it would also have an even bigger impact if Carlton County also made a push to get internet service to the rural areas of the county that currently are unable to receive internet services. More and more Middle and High Schools are utilizing tablets as a way for students to complete assignments and do homework. This is a hardship for those students who 1)don't have internet access at home due it internet services not be available in their area and 2) can't afford internet access even if it is available in their area.

I don't have a business but just for everyday needs it would be great

I am not sure if it would cause my business to expand, but it would definitely make work easier and more efficient.

Unsure

Would be a great ! Due to school work needs a faster dependable internet

We would like to be able to use it watch online. We do not have cable or dish and would love to take advantage of Netflix, Hulu, etc....

Would be awesome to have faster internet. Paying bill online would go faster.

We could have a home business.

Yes

Internet service is very poor--very poor speed

It would be great to have unlimited high speed internet. I'd like to be able to stream video which is is very expensive using cellular.

Yes be able to search for parts instead of going to town

Now that We are retired We would like the chance to do more on the internet, while we had gotten the computer to email our son in the navy as he went around the world to Afghanistan and other places, he has now retired also but they do not live close so a good internet that can handle downloads of pictures etc. Would be so nice ( not to have to fight & wait)

Would be able to do gaming. Also could stream movies and the like without it always buffering

My wife would be able to work from home if we had better internet service. No more drives to Duluth for work!

I do not have a business.

112 (Final 12/18/2016) Would help with kids homework projects. Could do them from home. Also I could possibly start working from home if we had better internet.

We are retired and don't have a business but faster Internet service would allow us to stream Netflix and other shows. We would be able to have Wifi that could be used with iPads, TV's, etc.

I have had the option to work from home at my job but had to turn it down due to no high speed internet at my location.

Would be the best hing since sliced bread. Lol. It would be amazing help

It would bring our home to 21 century, change our lives for better. We have 2 homes in Carlton county, other home in Cloquet where we subscribe to century link and that's not fast either, I would LOVE to have broadband at both homes

I work over the road doing fiber optics and need cell service to FaceTime my wife and kids

My husband could maybe work from home a couple days a week!

Huge impact for school work

Kids could do their homework. Would be able to think of going back to the work I loved

Yes

I would like to open my own business aND would opt to do in Carlton instead of Duluth

I would start a home business - transcription

I could help my kids work easier and stay in contact with my family much easier as well without it costing a lot over mobile data

Would allow me to utilize my smart tv features, give me access to the Internet other than just on my smart phone, and allow me to do business online.

I would go back to school.

Working from home in general.

Not for me especially but I know of friends that it would benefit

Yes my children could use it for school

Better Internet service would help with my telecommuting.

Every thing

My kids would be more apt to spend time at home instead of in town and using library or WiFi hot spots. The majority of their school work requires Internet. We need more options bad!

No

113 (Final 12/18/2016) It would make my family life so much easier in so many ways. We can't do schoolwork at home, we can't do anything at home that requires the internet. It is absolutely horrible.

School work

It would be easier for my kids to do research at home for homework/school/college

I could do some of my work at my home which would be very nice.

No

Soon we'll have 3 kids in school. Plus I've been told by company's that plowed the fiber optic in and phone company's that the fiber is in along county hwy 61 they just need to finish.

A verity games, Netflix, computer use instead of cell phone txt

Unsure

114 (Final 12/18/2016) Works Cited https://mn.gov/deed/assets/2015-broadband-report_tcm1045-190728.pdf http://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2014/09/all_hands_on_deck_mn.pdf https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/07/PPP-Report-2016.pdf https://ilsr.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2016/04/rs-fiber-report-2016.pdf http://www.hill2dot0.com/wiki/index.php?title=VDSL2 http://www.extension.umn.edu/community/brain-gain/ http://www.nyls.edu/advanced-communications-law-and-policy-institute/wp- content/uploads/sites/169/2013/08/ACLP-%E2%80%93-Monticello-Case-Study- %E2%80%93-June-2014.pdf http://www.rd.usda.gov/files/fact-sheet/RD-FactSheet-RBS-REDLG.pdf http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/08/19/regional/monticello-broadband

Winchester, Benjamin. 2012. Continuing the Trend: The Brain Gain of the Newcomers. University of Minnesota, Extension Center for Community Vitality.

Winchester, Benjamin; Nash, Art; and Tobias Spanier. 2011. The Glass Half Full: A New View of Rural Minnesota. Rural Minnesota Journal 6(1): 1-30. https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/caf-2-accepted-map/

115 (Final 12/18/2016)