From DEED Office of Broadband 2014 Projects: A progress report Thursday, October 8, 2015 03:00 Register Here! This webinar will highlight three DEED Border to Border Broadband Projects that are providing broadband to unserved areas. Each project illustrates a different approach with technology, business model and priority. These examples will help you to imagine and plan your partnership

1. O C T O B E R 8 T H , 2 0 1 5
Palmer Wireless B2B Project

2. Palmer Wireless Overview
 Started by the Kangas’ and Tim Boie as a wireless
internet provider for the Clear Lake rural area in 2006
due to lack of internet access for our community
 Added 3.5G technology in 2009 and expanded the
service offering to include a larger area in central MN
and became a cellular phone service provider
 Added the Citescape unlicensed network to the business
offering in central Minnesota in November of 2014
 Added Duet IP to the Palmer Wireless business in June
of 2015
 Serving over 3,000 wireless internet and cellular phone
customers in central Minnesota
 Added fiber to the premise customers in October 2015

3. Fiber Project Summary
 Becker Industrial Park consists of 24 businesses on
the West side of the city of Becker
 Current broadband is through Windstream’s copper
DSL, or from various wireless solutions
 The City of Becker became concerned that businesses
would leave or not be attracted to the park due to
lack of adequate broadband
 Becker is Palmer Wireless’ “hometown” along with
Palmer Township with many business and personal
ties to the community

4. Project scope
 Construction of 20,000 feet of main artery network that
reached from the Palmer Wireless fiber hut at Becker Schools
to the Becker Industrial Park
 All construction was in 1 ¼ conduit
 144 count fiber and 48 count fiber were used
 Permits secured from State of MN, Sherburne County, City of
Becker and Burlington Northern
 Calix was selected as the electronics vendor and Clearfield was
selected as the fiber drop and patch panel solution
 NewCore was selected as the Engineering and Project
Management vendor
 Michel’s was selected as the contractor for fiber and vault
installation

5. Becker Industrial Park Map

6. Project Challenges
 BNSF crossing was very time consuming and costly
 Pre Securing the customers for service
 Some businesses wanted to wait until it was completely built
 Some businesses didn’t need more bandwidth (yet!)
 Time management with other concurrent projects
 Demand for other services such as fax and voice in
addition to broadband
 Right of way constraints, especially on Liberty Lane
 Constant locate requests during construction when
the conduit wasn’t able to be located

7. Success to date
 October 1st marked the launch of the first commercial
customers delivering up to 100 Mbps down and up
 Becker Furniture World
 Fire Bugsz
 Vogel Display
 25% of the businesses in the park have committed to
service prior to construction
 Media coverage and local support have been great
 City of Becker has been very good to work with during
the pre construction and construction mode
 No resident complaints during construction and no lines
hit by the construction crew

8. Going forward goals
 Securing 75% of the businesses in the park
 Leverage this project to serve additional areas that
are in need of high quality local service
 99.99% reliability
 Expanding to 1 Gbps service in the next 12 months