Minnesota County Closes in on 100% Gigabit Fiber Coverage
Since 2013 CarverLink has used a combination of public and private collaborations, along with county, federal and partner funding.
Officials in Carver County Minnesota continue to make great progress expanding affordable fiber access to the county of 111,000 residents, thanks largely to their publicly-owned open access fiber network CarverLink and their partnership with Metronet.
Since its inception in 2013, Carver County has leveraged public and private collaborations and funding with the goal of making symmetrical Gigabit per second (1 Gbps) fiber available to all locations county wide. With the looming completion of its most recent $10.5 million expansion, CarverLink Fiber Manager Randy Lehs told ISLR they’re getting very close to their ultimate goal.
The county currently has ownership and use of nearly 1,200 miles of fiber throughout Carver County and southern Minnesota connecting more than 280 last mile public and community support locations. Many of these markets have no connectivity; many others are stuck on dated, sluggish, patchy connectivity from regional monopolies.
CarverLink doesn’t provide fiber directly to residents and businesses. Instead it long-ago established a partnership with Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide gigabit fiber service to businesses and local residential households. Winner of PCMag's “Fastest Major ISP for 2023” award, Metronet provides multi-gigabit fiber to 300+ communities across 17 states.
“CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our network that is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities–open access, open interconnect fiber,” Lehs said. “And through our open access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig.”
Metronet target areas receive speeds and prices significantly better than most large regional monopolies.
Metronet currently offers four tiers of service with varying promotions, which currently include symmetrical 150 megabit per second fiber for $35 a month; symmetrical 500 Mbps for $45 a month; symmetrical 1 gigabit per second for $50 a month; symmetrical 2 Gbps for $70 a month; and symmetrical 5 Gbps for $110 a month.
Unlike many regional telecom monopolies, Metronet’s tiers don’t have usage caps, hidden fees, or long-term contracts.
Staggered deployment with the goal of county-wide connectivity
“Since 2013 CarverLink has used a combination of public and private collaborations on a variety of projects, programs and initiatives, along with County, Federal and partner funding, in CarverLink’s efforts of making 1GB symmetrical Internet available to all locations countywide, which includes all rural and city locations,” Lehs said.
The project initially began with an $8 million investment ($6 million federal, $2 million County funded) to build a 89-mile fiber ring that routed through all eleven of Carver County’s cities – as well as 32 miles of lateral fiber.
“Up until 2022, CarverLink facilitated a number of public and private collaborations, most notably, the public-private collaboration with CarverLink’s fiber network maintenance provider Jaguar Communications – purchased by Metronet in 2020 – to construct and acquire roughly 100 miles of additional usable fiber per year,” Lehs noted.
In 2022 the project scope expanded after Carver County provided $6.5 million for a $10.5 million public private collaboration with Metronet dubbed the Connect Up Carver (CUC) project.
For that project, $5.5 million of the county’s funding came from Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds received through the American Rescue Plan Act.
The CUC, alongside “several parallel initiatives and programs,” constructed more than 360 miles of fiber to over 2000 rural locations in Carver County, wrapping up late last year.
In summer of 2024 Carver County provided $2.5 million for an additional $14.3 million expansion of the CUC project with Metronet called the Connect Up Carver Expansion (CUCE).
That expansion project consists of two aspects: the first being the construction of roughly 80 miles of rural fiber to over 440 locations. Once finished it will complete CarverLink’s efforts to make 1 Gbps symmetrical internet available to every rural location in Carver County.
The second aspect of the CUCE project will expand fiber into the cities of Victoria and Chanhassen, Minnesota, two of Carver County’s three remaining cities (of 11 total).
CarverLink began construction in fall 2024 in Victoria and Chanhassen and is looking for substantial construction throughout 2025 with a completion deadline of June 2026.
“As of February 2025, CarverLink is 90 percent complete with this aspect of the CUCE project and is on task to complete by our deadline of June 2025,” Lehs said.
That leaves Chaska, Minnesota, population 29,000, as the last Carver County city without identified public or private projects – or existing service provider plans to connect to all the city’s remaining un/underserved locations to affordable fiber. Lehs says CarverLink has been having discussions with both Metronet about potential expansion there.
But they’re also pressuring Comcast to upgrade the 10,000 locations in Chaska that Xfinity provides non symmetrical fiber service of 1Gbps so the city can complete its goal of county wide gigabit fiber access.
Munis aided by legislative reform, grant money
Minnesota’s munis were aided by the state’s decision last year to strike down two problematic statutes that prevented towns and the cities in the state from providing municipal broadband access. While rolling back those laws stands to benefit other municipal broadband-minded communities, Lehs says Carver County wasn’t impacted all that much due to their business model, and the fact the county has no plans to become a last mile residential ISP.
One antiquated law that had been on the books for over a century (Minn. Stat. Ann. § 237.19) allowed municipalities in Minnesota to buy or construct “telephone exchanges” only if they secured a supermajority vote in a local referendum election.
Another law (Minn. Stat. Ann. § 429.021(19)) gave municipalities the express authority to “improve, construct, extend, and maintain facilities for Internet access” but only if a private provider was not offering service in that municipality.
Meanwhile, Minnesota is poised to receive more than $652 million in Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) grants courtesy of the 2021 infrastructure bill.
But, that's assuming the Trump administration doesn’t freeze or redirect the funding.
Many Minnesota providers say they weren’t keen on participating in the grant process due to what they called onerous restrictions.
“BEAD is a question mark, and as it stands, does not work for our model,” Lehs told ILSR. “With all the uncertainty with Musk’s DOGE office and Trump’s new pick of the FCC and NTIA that are relatively anti BEAD as it stands right now, and the Fed halting grants and then picking them back up and with all the BEAD requirements for Buy American and Prevailing Wage, Carver County isn’t currently looking at making efforts to secure any of those funds because of the uncertainty, restrictions and requirements that come with it.”
This article was published by the Community Broadband Networks Initiative of the Institute for Local Self Reliance on CommunityNets February 12, 2025, and is reprinted with permission.
