Wikstrom Telephone receives grant funding to bury more fiber

KARLSTAD, Minn. — Wikstrom Telephone Company received funding Wednesday, June 28 for a grant from OBD/DEED to serve rural parts of Kittson and Marshall counties.
Engineering is underway, with construction to start in 2024.
Wikstrom Telephone proposes to serve rural, sparsely populated areas in Kittson and Marshall counties in far northwest Minnesota, passing 199 home, business and farm locations. The last mile project, in a very low density population, covers an unserved area with speeds up to 1 Gigabit, exceeding the 2026 state speed goal, on a fiber to the premise network.
This partnership with the state of Minnesota will provide service to an area with less than one subscriber per route mile of cable, in several cases extending from routes placed under the 2022 Border to Border State Grant program.
Broadband service is the key to economic development and stimulating a robust local area economy with critical e-learning education services for our children, precision agriculture, and allows at home health care monitoring in this remote area.
Total eligible costs are $3,375,318 with applicant matching funds of $843,830 and state grant funds of $2,531,488.