It has been a busy construction season at Garden Valley Technologies. Our construction crews and installers have been working hard to bring service to several new areas as well as bringing upgraded fiber to our current members. With all the projects going on, you’ve likely noticed an increase in GVT trucks and construction throughout our service area. Here is an update on some of our major projects:
City of Warren – We began our fiber network construction in spring of 2021 in the city of Warren and after completing the network link to TRF, and the buried fiber within the Warren city limits, we are ready to begin installing service this month. Our CSRs have been busy scheduling installs for residences and businesses. If you are located in the city of Warren and interested in getting service, call 800-448-8260 today or visit join.gvtel.com to schedule your install.
City of Thief River Falls – We installed our very first member in TRF with service on October 26, 2020, and one year later we have completed all planned construction and have hundreds of customers enjoying quality GVT services on our new fiber network. Therefore, any resident in the City of Thief River Falls who wants GVT services can get it, and for those who may live in apartments or developments that are not yet wired, we continue to wire individual apartment buildings upon approval by owners. We are adding new GVT members daily and we fully expect to stay very busy in TRF for the foreseeable future.
Euclid and North Thief River Falls Grant Area – Construction of this project is part of our Minnesota Border-to-Border Broadband Development Grant that was awarded in January and has been progressing with over 39 miles of mainline trenched and over 27 drops placed. Once complete, the Euclid and rural Thief River Falls project will bring service to 126 unserved and under-served locations. Residents in city of Euclid and the northeastern section of rural Euclid can expect GVT service starting in the winter of 2022. North Thief River Falls and the areas south and west of Euclid will begin construction in the summer of 2022 with services available later in 2022 or early 2023.
Union Lake and Island Lake – GVT started plowing new fiber optic cable to residences in the Union Lake and Island Lake areas during the summer of 2021, and have completed the placement of fiber optic cable. By upgrading to Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP), we can provide our members with the latest technology in telephone, Internet, and video services and we appreciate the opportunity to enhance and improve services to our existing members.
Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) – Garden Valley Technologies took part in the RDOF program as part of a consortium with three other area companies. Being part of a consortium gave us the opportunity to save money and bid on a larger area. Ultimately, GVT was awarded $2,792,139.40 over 10 years to build out to 492 locations in designated census block areas west of Thief River Falls and outside of Mahnomen. We recently received word from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that our application was officially approved in October and therefore we can start construction to these areas. A few areas will be built yet in 2021 but the majority of the RDOF award areas will not be build until 2022 or later. GVT has several years to construct these areas as part of this program.
GVT is committed to continually improving our existing infrastructure and looking for opportunities to help serve our neighbors who live in under-served areas. 2021 was a busy and successful year of construction and 2022 is showing no signs of slowing down!
