Dickinson Co. Supervisors Approve Permit To Extend Fiber Optics Broadband Internet To Some Rural Areas

4/12/2022

(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors today (Tues.) approved a permit allowing a local company to move forward with plans to expand broadband internet services to rural areas east and west of Spirit Lake and north to the Minnesota border. Adam Nielsen of Iowa Great Lakes Teleconnect told the Supervisors they plan to extend 37 miles of fiber optic cable in a project that was made possible by a grant they were awarded…

“We’re going to serve roughly 260 homes in rural Spirit Lake with fiber optic cable. So we leave from our tower site over here north of the fairgrounds and distribute everything west of Spirit Lake and east of Spirit Lake from about 190th Street north to the Minnesota border, so all of those homes in the rural district we’ll bury fiber to this year, and potentially we’ll do the same thing in the Lake Park rural telephone exchange as well depending on how the year progresses.”

Supervisor Tim Fairchild said that while it’s an important project, it’s also vital they make sure it complies with the county’s new ordinance regulating the construction of utilities through drainage districts…

“I guess I’m not sure what we want to do here but I would think the board would want some map basically explaining what your intentions are and we’ll run that by an engineer to make sure that reaches or meets muster, I should say.”

As part of approving a permit for the project, the supervisors waived the one million dollar fee for crossing county tile lines.

https://www.exploreokoboji.com/news/news-stories/dickinson-co-supervisors-approve-permit-to-extend-fiber-optics-broadband-internet-to-some-rural-areas

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