BRAINERD — High-speed internet access may have never been more crucial to people in rural areas.
Maybe it’s being able to FaceTime a doctor’s visit, access an online program to earn an advanced degree after working a full shift, or being able to start a business at home — having reliable and fast internet access is a basic building block for home, health and careers. Yet it is still not available to everyone in central Minnesota.
But a federal grant and the continuing efforts of CTC are working to change that.
Contributed / CTC
Andrew Berke, administrator for the Rural Utilities Service, visited CTC Wednesday, Dec. 18, in Brainerd for the official announcement of the $5.5 million RUS ReConnect 5 Grant by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The grant will expand high-speed broadband access in the area to 592 establishments, covering 43.24 square miles with 1,551 people gaining access to fiber broadband in the community. Broadband is high-speed internet access that is always on. The entire project cost is estimated to be $11 million.
Contributed / CTC
The domino effect of providing that service will create more good-paying careers with CTC, which is expanding its building on Madison Street in the Brainerd Industrial Park, adding about 8,000 square feet.
“I really want to thank CTC — all the workers that are all around here that have made this possible,” Berke said. “CTC has been a huge partner of RUS, and over the last several years, and the reason is because you all fit our mission, and hopefully we fit your mission, which is to make sure that people live a high quality of life and have the economic fortunes that they work for and deserve. And we see that every day, over the course of many years, CTC has done an amazing job.”
Berke, a Stanford University graduate with a law degree from the University of Chicago Law School, was mayor or Chattanooga, Tennessee, from 2013 to 2021. He also served in the Tennessee State Senate and was a special representative for broadband at the Naitonal Telecommunications and Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce. Berke’s visit to Brainerd represented his last high-speed internet event as an appointed official now with the change of leadership in the White House.
Because it is just like the roads or water or electricity … It really is the new utility.
Andrew Berke, administrator for the Rural Utilities Service, said of broadband
“It’s something I’ve been working on for a long time,” Berke said. “So I just want to spend a minute and kind of give you all a perspective on where we’ve been and where we are.”
Berke said Chattanooga was the first U.S. city to have universal high-speed broadband all around the city. It gained the nickname Gig City.
“What we saw was that our fortunes really did improve,” Berke said. “We have one of the highest wage growths in the country for a midsize city. … We saw what high speed internet could do for our residents. And so for most of the past decade, I’d move around the country talking about the fact that we needed to have universal high-speed internet.”
Berke said people told him more funding would go toward it but there would never be universal access. Then the pandemic arrived and the bipartisan infrastructure law. Berke said President Joe Biden made a pledge that every American would have access to affordable high speed internet. Berke said America changed from a country that said it was OK to make incremental progress to a country that expected every single American should have access to the resource.
“Because it is just like the roads or water or electricity and in 2024, and now 2025, as weird as that is to say.” Berke said. “It really is the new utility.”
He noted a comparison to the effort to bring electricity to rural area with the Rural Electrification Administration. Nearly 90 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the REA to bring electricity to rural areas of the county. The USDA notes in 1936, nearly 90% of U.S. Farms lacked electricity because of the cost to expand it to rural areas. By 1950, nearly 80% of U.S. farms had electric service.
Berke noted the rural areas he grew up in around Chattanooga had economic activity because of Roosevelt’s push to bring electricity to them.
“And the modern day version of this is that President Biden said we’re going to do this for everybody,” Berke said. “And thanks to the funding that our senators and other members of Congress did, particularly through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we now have that chance.”
Berke said he thinks about a sign in a parking lot outside a school in Mississippi where they were making a grant. The sign said “For best internet park here.”
He said he thinks about that sign every day. He thought of a woman who ran a 21-room lodge in New Mexico that had gotten high-speed internet thanks to a Rural Utilities Service grant.
“She told me was this was going to change her business, because although people get out there to be removed from society, they still want internet.”
They went from barely being able to send an email to being able to livestream a music festival. Before the pandemic, Berke noted people had to make a choice between living in the place they loved to having the job they wanted. Now, more than ever, he said, people can have both.
“So today, I’m here to announce this award to CTC, our $5.5 million award. And this is going to be part of a much larger project that they’re doing, but it follows several awards that we’ve made to CTC and that we’ve watched them use wisely.”
Renee Richardson / Brainerd Dispatch
Overall, Berke said the award was part of $313 million working across the country in 18 different states.
“To give you some idea, during this administration, we’ve done about $4.2 billion worth of new high-speed internet awards,” Berke said. “We’ve got 96 different projects that are in construction, and we are seeing a difference in rural areas.”
Berke thanked CTC for the great work it is doing and he said they know it will make a difference in the area counties.
Berke noted how well-regarded Kristi Westbrock, CEO and general manager at CTC, is at the national level. Berke said Minnesota senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith are significant advocates with representatives at the event along with representation from the governor’s office.
“We really appreciate the governor’s leadership on this,” Berke said.
Westbrock thanked Berke and said Rural Utilities Service works so well with the ReConnect Loan and Grant Program from USDA and is a great funding program. The ReConnect Loan and Grant Program, USDA states, furnishes loans and grants to provide funds for the costs of construction, improvement, or acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service in eligible rural areas.
Westbrock said this year they’ll focus on the engineering for the project with construction expected in late 2025 and 2026 and into 2027. Westrock said the award is a $5.5 million grant that also has a $5.5 million USDA loan they don’t need to pay back for the first three years.
“So that makes it viable that we can go connect customers and have the money in the bank to be able to pay this back to get rural America served,” Westbrock said, thanking Crow Wing and Morrison counties.
Westbrock pointed to a freelance photographer, Trisha Spencer, who lives outside of Little Falls, and wrote to CTC. At her home, Spencer couldn’t upload her photos in real-time. What took hours at her home, she was able to do in minutes at her parents’ home in Fort Ripley because they had CTC.
“It’s those small entrepreneurs that also get that opportunity in rural America, which I always think is great,” Westbrock said.
She also noted the work provides opportunities for employees at CTC who can have careers and benefits as they build the future of the nation in building broadband.
Renee Richardson / Brainerd Dispatch
“We’re up to 96 employees, and we’ll go over 100 point mark for $45 million in revenue today, Westbrock said, adding it all goes back into the membership, which is the beauty of a cooperative.
“We’re building it for people to have sustainability in their in their lives and in their homes,” Westbrock said.
Those who attended the announcement also had the opportunity to learn how to slice fibers. Westbrock noted MC Fiber is a new company under CTC ownership and also a Rural Utilities Service project so they can start constructing their own fiber. They are doing this jointly with Meeker Electric Co-op. This winter, their crews are going south to build fiber in Kansas.
Crow Wing County Board Chair Jon Lubke said it was great for CTC and very needed with the work helping complete access to high-speed internet in Crow Wing County and help the continued growth in the county.
CTC has also worked with federal programs to add 500 line extensions to reach single homes that may be down a long driveway or just beyond the end of a line.
“CTC has been nothing short of amazing, amazingly successful at landing grants, both from the state and federal government, and that’s largely due to Kristi’s leadership, but to bring in literally millions of dollars into the community every year for the past several years … it really helps us expand new services,” said Matt Kilian, Brainerd Lakes Chamber of Commerce president.
Kilian noted the work is capital intensive with all the fiber going in the ground before there are paying customers at the end of the project, which makes projects that provide a grace period for the loan payback for the company investing in the equipment that much more critical for sustainability.
As someone who lived without internet service when he first moved to the Brainerd area, Kilian knows first-hand what that is like.
Kilian said: “It’s a great Christmas present for all the people who live in those areas.”
Renee Richardson, managing editor, may be reached at 218-855-5852 or renee.richardson@brainerddispatch.com. Follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DispatchBizBuzz.
