20 Million in grants awarded to Bois Forte Band or Chippewa for Broadband

The Bois Forte Band of Chippewa received federal grant funding for broadband services that will be implemented in over 3,000 homes and businesses in the community.

According to the press release, the grant award, which totals $20 million, was announced on October 11th. It is being administered by the National Telecommunications and Information Administrations (NTIA) Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. Minnesota-based broadband cooperative CTC assisted in preparing the grant application with the Bois Forte Band. CTC will also oversee construction and operation of the fiber optic broadband network. There is 375 miles of fiber optic cable expected to be in the region upon completion.

Through the development process of the grant, CTC reportedly identified 98% of the locations within the project area that are currently unserved. CTC defined these unserved locations as lacking broadband speeds of less than 25 megabits per second (Mbps) download and 3 Mbps upload. Once the project is completed, locations with these lacking speeds will have access to symmetrical speeds of over 1 Gigabit per second.