Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By TOM LAVENTURE
Hurley — The Iron County Development Zone Council on Oct. 27 acted to prioritize the ongoing efforts to bring broadband wireless across the entire county as an essential goal.
The action followed discussion of the Iron County Board of Supervisors’ recent rejection of a multi-county bond agreement for Bugtussle Wireless to install 108 miles of a fiberoptic cable corridor. The line would have provided gigabyte or faster downloads directly from Bugtussle or through leaser companies that would branch off the lines into rural areas that providers would otherwise not have found cost-effective to serve.
The council acted 11-0 to officially encourage the Iron County Broadband Committee and the county board to continue pursuing vendors that could install fiberoptic lines and communication towers with fiberoptic and fixed wireless capabilities. The council meets periodically to discuss all development matters involving business, tourism and quality of life in the county and members said broadband is an infrastructure need for continued growth.
“It’s got to happen,” said committee member Tom Innes of Gurney. “To just meet here every month and just on and on it goes is not helping. We’ve got to put this on the front burner.”
Kelly Klein, director of the Iron County Development office, spoke on broadband expansion progress prior to the committee action. He said the Gogebic Range Broadband Authority continues its efforts to raise funds to place more fixed wireless equipment on communication towers in addition to building new towers to reach the most remote areas. The Gogebicrange.net service provides service to these areas where there are no other options.
“Last year, about this time, we had applied for a grant through the (Wisconsin) Public Service Commission and we got a little over half a million dollars to help them out with this,” Klein said. “So they’re going to put equipment on nine other towers. That will give us about 20 towers that are providing service and that’s pretty good for a county of our size. So we’re doing well there.”
Although the Iron County Board rejected the Bugtussle proposal the work is ongoing, he said. The current commercial provider has a fiberoptic link line coming into the county, but only for Hurley.
There are fiber lines running along U.S. 2 from Duluth across the Upper Peninsula, and coming from the south to Hurley, he said. But those lines don’t branch off along the way and where they do, it is often a copper line or a fixed wireless system that reduces the broadband speeds, he said.
There are providers working to install broadband either through fixed wireless or fiberoptic lines in surrounding counties off of those main lines. The efforts are the result of federal funding.
Klein said the county broadband survey that took place in November and December 2020 produced an impressive 1,027 responses from mailers out of every household in the county. The Northwest Regional Planning Commission is currently tabulating data into a report that should be ready in December.
Some highlights from the study include 68% of residents reporting they are not satisfied with the speed and reliability of their current internet service. The study showed that 63% of respondents are CenturyLink customers.
Another 500 people who took the survey report they are working from home, Klein said.
“That’s a lot of jobs,” Klein said. “That is something to pay attention to and that is a trend that is probably going to continue.”
Around 27% of the remote workers are involved with telehealth positions, he said. That is important with the area’s aging population, he said.
This is why the county should pursue fiberoptic service, Klein said. Fixed wireless is sufficient for many people Fiberoptics carries more data than wireless systems which reduces latency and allows for larger and faster data uploads and downloads, he said.
