Council eyes boosting internet access in city

In a work session with Cloquet City Council members Tuesday, members of the Cloquet broadband committee shared their personal and professional experiences with internet access in Cloquet, with a common conclusion: It’s not good enough.

Their recommendation? Take the $300,000 the city has committed from America Rescue Plan Act funds and use that for an engineering study to identify a fiber system and costs for roughly $20,000, and use additional funds to secure and match larger grants that target broadband access.

All four committee members shared how the Covid-19 pandemic revealed the inequity and inadequacy of internet access in the Cloquet area.

Mary Lukkarila told how she learned she had a data limit during the pandemic, and even after upgrading her Mediacom internet subscription, she still faced buffering and got knocked off Zoom calls — and she doesn’t have any other family members using up data.

Duane Buytaert, lifelong resident and county IT specialist, said the pandemic revealed weaknesses in his broadband service — which he had considered perfectly adequate — when all five family members suddenly had to teach and attend classes, plus work online.

Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College IT chief information officer Pete Angelos talked about “opportunity cost” and how not having adequate internet will eventually result in lost opportunities as well as more challenges to education. Sam Jacobson, who works in IT at Community Memorial Hospital, explained that CMH faced many challenges as it rolled out telehealth initiatives during the pandemic and struggled to get solid video connections and sometimes even audio.

Committee members have been participating in weekly broadband educational sessions for months, and made their recommendations based on what they know and learned, along with feedback from a successful community survey with 683 valid responses.

Community development director Holly Hansen offered highlights from the survey, including that 83 percent felt there aren’t enough internet choices, 54 percent say it’s not affordable, 43 percent say they aren’t satisfied with reliability or customer service, while 45 percent say speeds are too slow.

After comparing different ways of delivering internet services, the committee concluded that “fiber to the front door” is really the only way to ensure future growth, versus the telephone lines used by CenturyLink, signals through the air that can be interrupted by buildings, trees or weather, and even cable access by Mediacom, which don’t have the equal upload and download speeds offered by fiber and which can be slowed by too many users.

“Everything falls massively short except fiber,” Jacobson said.

Hansen offered some perspective that made Cloquet internet inadequacies look better, by comparing access within city limits to other parts of the county.

While Cloquet and the Fond du Lac Reservation fall into the “adequate” internet access range of 100 megabits per second download and 20Mbps upload speeds, most of Carlton County is considered either “underserved” (25Mbps download/3Mbps upload) or “unserved,” with either no wireless internet available or even lower top speeds.

City administrator Tim Peterson said the council will need to vote on the committee’s recommendation to engage in negotiations with CTC — a cooperative technology services advisor already working in central Minnesota — to develop a plan, install fiber and provide ongoing services to the community.

CTC and the Fond du Lac Band’s Aaniin network got the highest marks from the committee, but Hansen and Peterson both said CTC was more prepared to work with the city sooner, and there is a deadline of 2026 to use the Rescue Act funds.

Other Cloquet news:

• The city of Cloquet and the Boldt Company are organizing the second annual Cloquet Earth Day Clean-Up from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, April 30. Pre-registration is preferred. The first 100 volunteers to register will receive a free t-shirt. Find a link at cloquetmn.gov or arrive between 9:30-10 a.m. for pre-registration at the Dunlap Island Park warming house. After the cleanup ends at noon, stay for the free picnic.

• The city is advertising for a new library director. The position will be considered open until filled with the initial screening of resumes by April 20.