After many delays, Lake County is now in the process of hanging in fiber for its extensive fiber optic network project called Lake Connections. A recent report from WDIO.com in Duluth reminds us that Mediacom and other opponents of the project have continued to obstruct the progress of a network that will connect thousands of households who presently have no broadband options.

As we have seen in a few other stimulus-supported projects, companies like Mediacom are trying to protect their overpriced, last-generation networks by working with Republicans that want to discredit anything stimulus-related. It is sad to see so many rural households caught in the crossfire, particularly knowing that Mediacom has no plans to expand outside a few towns in the County - this means that if Mediacom were able to stop this project, many people would have no hope of getting real access to the Internet.

From the article and the video we have reposted below:

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is the branch of the USDA that approves money spent on the project. County Administrator Matt Huddleston said there is no indication the money will stop flowing.

“In the meantime we're focused on building the network and RUS is continually seeing our contracts move to them, and they're approving them and providing us the funds at this time to continue building it,” Huddleston said.

He said $20 million is tied up in contracts, and construction will move forward.

Connections to homes and businesses in Two Harbors and Silver Bay should be finished by July according to officials. Then a connection to Duluth will be built to connect the entire network to the rest of the world. Officials said the network will reach up to Ely by the end of 2015.

The project is divided into three phases with this first phase in full swing. According to the most recent Gaining Speed Newsetter [PDF], over 4,600 feet of fiber was placed on poles in Silver Bay during the first week of April.

The project has been slowed both by the intervention of Mediacom and its own decision to remove the original management team and bring in a new group.

After many delays, Lake County is now in the process of hanging in fiber for its extensive fiber optic network project called Lake Connections. A recent report from WDIO.com in Duluth reminds us that Mediacom and other opponents of the project have continued to obstruct the progress of a network that will connect thousands of households who presently have no broadband options.

As we have seen in a few other stimulus-supported projects, companies like Mediacom are trying to protect their overpriced, last-generation networks by working with Republicans that want to discredit anything stimulus-related. It is sad to see so many rural households caught in the crossfire, particularly knowing that Mediacom has no plans to expand outside a few towns in the County - this means that if Mediacom were able to stop this project, many people would have no hope of getting real access to the Internet.

From the article and the video we have reposted below:

The Rural Utilities Service (RUS) is the branch of the USDA that approves money spent on the project. County Administrator Matt Huddleston said there is no indication the money will stop flowing.

“In the meantime we're focused on building the network and RUS is continually seeing our contracts move to them, and they're approving them and providing us the funds at this time to continue building it,” Huddleston said.

He said $20 million is tied up in contracts, and construction will move forward.

Connections to homes and businesses in Two Harbors and Silver Bay should be finished by July according to officials. Then a connection to Duluth will be built to connect the entire network to the rest of the world. Officials said the network will reach up to Ely by the end of 2015.

The project is divided into three phases with this first phase in full swing. According to the most recent Gaining Speed Newsetter [PDF], over 4,600 feet of fiber was placed on poles in Silver Bay during the first week of April.

The project has been slowed both by the intervention of Mediacom and its own decision to remove the original management team and bring in a new group.

Lake County, a rural area on the north side of Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior, has long suffered with just dial up and satellite, with slow cable connections available in some of the towns. After receiving a stimulus project to build a county-owned FTTH project connecting everyone, many thought their broadband troubles were over.

But Mediacom attacked first, with unsubstantiated allegations of rules violations that investigators found to be lacking in merit. When Mediacom announced it would not further delay the project with a lawsuit, we again thought the project would proceed. 

But now a dispute over who owns some of the poles is holding up the project. The Lake County News reports that Frontier  asserts ownership of some poles on which aerial fiber optic cables sit as the project nears completion of Phase One. From the article:

There have been questions over the ownership of these poles in recent weeks. The poles, many of which Lake Connections has already utilized for attaching fiber, are within Two Harbors city limits. Frontier, a telecommunications provider in Lake County, said Lake Connections connected to their poles without submitting permit applications.

In an earlier report (reprinted here on mobilitytechzone.com and edited to include comments from Frontier), Mayor Randy Bolen declined to take an official position on the dispute between Frontier Communications and the install company, Lake Connections.

According to that October 25th report, there was a pole agreement between the two, but the agreement did not approach the issue of pole ownership. Rather than bring up the issue during negotiations, Frontier has waited until now to raise the challenge. Also from the article:

Lake County, a rural area on the north side of Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior, has long suffered with just dial up and satellite, with slow cable connections available in some of the towns. After receiving a stimulus project to build a county-owned FTTH project connecting everyone, many thought their broadband troubles were over.

But Mediacom attacked first, with unsubstantiated allegations of rules violations that investigators found to be lacking in merit. When Mediacom announced it would not further delay the project with a lawsuit, we again thought the project would proceed. 

But now a dispute over who owns some of the poles is holding up the project. The Lake County News reports that Frontier  asserts ownership of some poles on which aerial fiber optic cables sit as the project nears completion of Phase One. From the article:

There have been questions over the ownership of these poles in recent weeks. The poles, many of which Lake Connections has already utilized for attaching fiber, are within Two Harbors city limits. Frontier, a telecommunications provider in Lake County, said Lake Connections connected to their poles without submitting permit applications.

In an earlier report (reprinted here on mobilitytechzone.com and edited to include comments from Frontier), Mayor Randy Bolen declined to take an official position on the dispute between Frontier Communications and the install company, Lake Connections.

According to that October 25th report, there was a pole agreement between the two, but the agreement did not approach the issue of pole ownership. Rather than bring up the issue during negotiations, Frontier has waited until now to raise the challenge. Also from the article:

Lake County, a rural area on the north side of Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior, has long suffered with just dial up and satellite, with slow cable connections available in some of the towns. After receiving a stimulus project to build a county-owned FTTH project connecting everyone, many thought their broadband troubles were over.

But Mediacom attacked first, with unsubstantiated allegations of rules violations that investigators found to be lacking in merit. When Mediacom announced it would not further delay the project with a lawsuit, we again thought the project would proceed. 

But now a dispute over who owns some of the poles is holding up the project. The Lake County News reports that Frontier  asserts ownership of some poles on which aerial fiber optic cables sit as the project nears completion of Phase One. From the article:

There have been questions over the ownership of these poles in recent weeks. The poles, many of which Lake Connections has already utilized for attaching fiber, are within Two Harbors city limits. Frontier, a telecommunications provider in Lake County, said Lake Connections connected to their poles without submitting permit applications.

In an earlier report (reprinted here on mobilitytechzone.com and edited to include comments from Frontier), Mayor Randy Bolen declined to take an official position on the dispute between Frontier Communications and the install company, Lake Connections.

According to that October 25th report, there was a pole agreement between the two, but the agreement did not approach the issue of pole ownership. Rather than bring up the issue during negotiations, Frontier has waited until now to raise the challenge. Also from the article:

Lake County, a rural area on the north side of Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior, has long suffered with just dial up and satellite, with slow cable connections available in some of the towns. After receiving a stimulus project to build a county-owned FTTH project connecting everyone, many thought their broadband troubles were over.

But Mediacom attacked first, with unsubstantiated allegations of rules violations that investigators found to be lacking in merit. When Mediacom announced it would not further delay the project with a lawsuit, we again thought the project would proceed. 

But now a dispute over who owns some of the poles is holding up the project. The Lake County News reports that Frontier  asserts ownership of some poles on which aerial fiber optic cables sit as the project nears completion of Phase One. From the article:

There have been questions over the ownership of these poles in recent weeks. The poles, many of which Lake Connections has already utilized for attaching fiber, are within Two Harbors city limits. Frontier, a telecommunications provider in Lake County, said Lake Connections connected to their poles without submitting permit applications.

In an earlier report (reprinted here on mobilitytechzone.com and edited to include comments from Frontier), Mayor Randy Bolen declined to take an official position on the dispute between Frontier Communications and the install company, Lake Connections.

According to that October 25th report, there was a pole agreement between the two, but the agreement did not approach the issue of pole ownership. Rather than bring up the issue during negotiations, Frontier has waited until now to raise the challenge. Also from the article:

Lake County, a rural area on the north side of Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior, has long suffered with just dial up and satellite, with slow cable connections available in some of the towns. After receiving a stimulus project to build a county-owned FTTH project connecting everyone, many thought their broadband troubles were over.

But Mediacom attacked first, with unsubstantiated allegations of rules violations that investigators found to be lacking in merit. When Mediacom announced it would not further delay the project with a lawsuit, we again thought the project would proceed. 

But now a dispute over who owns some of the poles is holding up the project. The Lake County News reports that Frontier  asserts ownership of some poles on which aerial fiber optic cables sit as the project nears completion of Phase One. From the article:

There have been questions over the ownership of these poles in recent weeks. The poles, many of which Lake Connections has already utilized for attaching fiber, are within Two Harbors city limits. Frontier, a telecommunications provider in Lake County, said Lake Connections connected to their poles without submitting permit applications.

In an earlier report (reprinted here on mobilitytechzone.com and edited to include comments from Frontier), Mayor Randy Bolen declined to take an official position on the dispute between Frontier Communications and the install company, Lake Connections.

According to that October 25th report, there was a pole agreement between the two, but the agreement did not approach the issue of pole ownership. Rather than bring up the issue during negotiations, Frontier has waited until now to raise the challenge. Also from the article:

Lake County, a rural area on the north side of Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior, has long suffered with just dial up and satellite, with slow cable connections available in some of the towns. After receiving a stimulus project to build a county-owned FTTH project connecting everyone, many thought their broadband troubles were over.

But Mediacom attacked first, with unsubstantiated allegations of rules violations that investigators found to be lacking in merit. When Mediacom announced it would not further delay the project with a lawsuit, we again thought the project would proceed. 

But now a dispute over who owns some of the poles is holding up the project. The Lake County News reports that Frontier  asserts ownership of some poles on which aerial fiber optic cables sit as the project nears completion of Phase One. From the article:

There have been questions over the ownership of these poles in recent weeks. The poles, many of which Lake Connections has already utilized for attaching fiber, are within Two Harbors city limits. Frontier, a telecommunications provider in Lake County, said Lake Connections connected to their poles without submitting permit applications.

In an earlier report (reprinted here on mobilitytechzone.com and edited to include comments from Frontier), Mayor Randy Bolen declined to take an official position on the dispute between Frontier Communications and the install company, Lake Connections.

According to that October 25th report, there was a pole agreement between the two, but the agreement did not approach the issue of pole ownership. Rather than bring up the issue during negotiations, Frontier has waited until now to raise the challenge. Also from the article:

Lake County, a rural area on the north side of Minnesota's portion of Lake Superior, has long suffered with just dial up and satellite, with slow cable connections available in some of the towns. After receiving a stimulus project to build a county-owned FTTH project connecting everyone, many thought their broadband troubles were over.

But Mediacom attacked first, with unsubstantiated allegations of rules violations that investigators found to be lacking in merit. When Mediacom announced it would not further delay the project with a lawsuit, we again thought the project would proceed. 

But now a dispute over who owns some of the poles is holding up the project. The Lake County News reports that Frontier  asserts ownership of some poles on which aerial fiber optic cables sit as the project nears completion of Phase One. From the article:

There have been questions over the ownership of these poles in recent weeks. The poles, many of which Lake Connections has already utilized for attaching fiber, are within Two Harbors city limits. Frontier, a telecommunications provider in Lake County, said Lake Connections connected to their poles without submitting permit applications.

In an earlier report (reprinted here on mobilitytechzone.com and edited to include comments from Frontier), Mayor Randy Bolen declined to take an official position on the dispute between Frontier Communications and the install company, Lake Connections.

According to that October 25th report, there was a pole agreement between the two, but the agreement did not approach the issue of pole ownership. Rather than bring up the issue during negotiations, Frontier has waited until now to raise the challenge. Also from the article:

And for all its accusations, Larsen says Mediacom will not sue. Spending millions of dollars on a lawsuit in a place where the company serves so few homes, he said, "is not a great business decision."

The conflict that ensued is part of a national struggle. Public officials and some of their constituents argue that rural broadband is like rural electrification: It's a lifeline for small-town America that the free market will not extend. "We've been ridiculously underserved in this area for years," said Andy Fisher, who owns a Lake County bed-and-breakfast and a rural cross-country skiing lodge. The cable companies "are working in the interest of their profits. But if they're not going to serve this area, what are we going to do?"

"Lake County wants to make this into a David and Goliath story, where Mediacom is Goliath and poor little Lake County is David," said Tom Larsen, Mediacom's group vice president of legal and public affairs. "The truth is we're David because we're fighting [the government]. It's just the same story repeated all over the country."