Willmar, Minnesota officials say they’re making steady progress on construction of the city’s planned $24.5 million open access fiber network, with the first residential and business customers slated to come online sometime later this year.

Dubbed Willmar Connect, construction of the city-owned fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) network broke ground in May 2026, marking a pivotal turn from years of feasibility studies and council debates to actual directional boring, conduit placement, and fiber splicing.

When we last checked in on Willmar back in March, the city council had just voted 4-3 to sign off on the $24.5 million open access project. After a summer of steady construction the city says it’s making meaningful progress toward a full commercial launch.

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“We expect to light up our first users on the network this year,” Willmar City Administrator Kyle Box tells ILSR.

Phased Construction Starting From GO (Bond)

Construction of the network is occurring in three phases.

Phase one of the project, focused on Southwest Willmar, is budgeted for between $7.6 million to $9.2 million. This phase of the project will focus on backbone construction, neighborhood conduit boring, lateral connections, and converting a former municipal wastewater facility into the network operations center (NOC).

The city of Willmar, Minnesota (est. pop. 21,000), has voted to move forward on plans for a city-owned open access fiber network. The $24.5 million investment, which saw finalized approval by the Willmar city council earlier this month with a 4-3 vote, aims to drive accountable, affordable, fiber access to long underserved parts of the city about 100 miles west of Minneapolis/St. Paul.

In its 4-3 vote in early March, the City Council opted to continue work on the Connect Wilmar Initiative, something it says is an answer to the ongoing failures by regional incumbent telecom monopolies to provide uniform, high quality, high speed, affordable Internet access.

“Local internet providers were not interested in improving Willmar's internet infrastructure,” the city says. “After soliciting proposals, the city chose to partner with Hometown Fiber, aligning with Willmar’s long-term vision to provide fast, reliable internet through an open-access fiber network.”

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The decision to move forward on the network comes after several years of careful planning, starting with the creation of a city broadband committee in September of 2022, and a mapping of local broadband access (or lack thereof) completed in December of 2022.