Carver County

Table of goal data by year

Year	Rank	100/20 Mbps
2024	#13 of 87	98.62%
2023	#24 of 87	91.15%
2022	#19 of 87	93.2%
2021	#25 of 87	90.2%
2020	#20 of 87	89.37%
2019	#16 of 87	92.14%
2018	#17 of 87	85.09%
2017	#18 of 87	81.04%

Red dots represent unserved locations.

Wired (wireline) and wireless (fixed, non-mobile) served location percentage at various speeds.

Carver County: CarverLink Makes Plans for 2024

Carver County’s rank bumps from 24 to 14 for broadband access out of 87 counties.

Carver County is lucky to have CarverLink, a publicly owned broadband fiber optics network that celebrated a 10-year anniversary in September 2023. But 10 years seems to be a golden age for the organization. They remain instrumental in brokering deals and using $2.5 million in County funds to construct an additional 80+ miles of rural fiber that will make fiber available to all remaining rural locations throughout the County that do not currently have access to fiber internet. (Access a full CarverNet report.)

With leadership from CarverLink, Carver County retains its green ranking.

• Over the years, Carver County (or cities within) has not invested in matches for any successful MN Broadband grants. But CarverLink, Carver County’s publicly owned fiber optics network, has been instrumental in broadband in the community since inception
• Carver County will not benefit from a recent MN Broadband grant award.
• Carver County will benefit from 9 line extension awards (Rounds 1 and 2), which extend broadband to individual locations.
• Last years’ estimates indicated that it would cost $27.5 million to get ubiquitous broadband in the county. (I haven’t updated the number because recent report offers scenarios of costs based on BEAD funding rules that make current estimates less predictable than in the past. Yet, I think the number is still helpful.)
• In 2022, Carver ranked 2 using Microsoft’s Digital Equity Tool, which looks at various factors of a community.