Garden Valley Technologies has been awarded a Broadband Grant to provide Internet access in rural Mahnomen County.
Garden Valley Technologies has been awarded a Low-Density Population Broadband Development Grant from the State of Minnesota through the Minnesota Office of Broadband Development (OBD). This grant is within the borders of the White Earth Reservation in Mahnomen County and is one of only 26 grants being funded in the State of Minnesota in round 10 grant awards.
Residents and businesses in this area expressed support for GVT’s grant application, which gives GVT the opportunity to offer rural Mahnomen Internet access, allowing employees to work from home and their children improved access to homework and educational resources. The grant area covers parts of two counties and seven townships and will consist of over 142 miles of fiber.
The grant provides the assistance needed to plow state-of-the-art fiber optic cable to the homes in this area allowing access to Internet speeds up to 6 Gbps, local phone service and digital video services, which includes over 200 channels.
“This is exciting news, and I would like to thank the office of broadband and the State of Minnesota for this grant opportunity,” said Timothy Brinkman, CEO/General Manager at Garden Valley Technologies. “Grants like these make it possible to build out broadband in highly rural environments.”
The border-to-border broadband project for rural Mahnomen County will bring service to 287 underserved locations which include 221 residences, six businesses, 56 farms and four community institutions. The total project cost of $6,471,341 million will be partially financed by the $4.6 million Minnestoa broadband grant. Residents living in the area will receive communication from GVT on next steps in the project.
