Steele County

Steele County: Decent Coverage But Not Much Community Engagement

Steele County ranks 32 (down six points) for broadband access out of 87 counties. They have 87.59 percent coverage to broadband of 100 Mbps down and 20 up. They have 1661households without access to broadband at that speed. Estimates indicate that it will cost $15.4 million to get to ubiquitous broadband in the county.

Steele County has not worked with the Blandin Foundation. They have never received a MN Border to Border grant. They were home to a local provider (Jaguar), which was acquired two years ago.

LTD Broadband was awarded the opportunity to submit a long form to get federal funding (RDOF) to deploy FTTH throughout much of Minnesota, including parts of Steele County. The potential RDOF award meant Le Sueur’s state grant application was no longer eligible for other funding. In 2023, the federal funders disqualifies LTD Broadband from receiving funding and the MN Public Utilities Commission is looking at revoking the ETC designation they needed to qualify for funding.  Steele mourns the lost opportunity of being eligible for funding during the LTD Broadband saga.

In December 2022, Spectrum received $158,052 to cover 56 households in Steele County. Steele County retains a yellow ranking but with some concern given the stagnant ranking since 2019.