{"id":192076,"date":"2025-10-11T04:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T04:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/192076\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T04:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T04:45:09","slug":"willmar-citywide-broadband-project-ready-for-council-action-oct-20-west-central-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/192076\/","title":{"rendered":"Willmar citywide broadband project ready for council action Oct. 20 – West Central Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"

WILLMAR<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Willmar Planning and Development Director Christopher Corbett dropped the news Thursday that the <\/p>\n

Willmar City Council<\/a><\/p>\n

is ready to make a decision at the Oct. 20 council meeting to go out for bids to begin the construction of the open-access, citywide <\/p>\n

broadband<\/a><\/p>\n

initiative.<\/p>\n

The announcement was made during the <\/p>\n

Kandiyohi County Economic Development<\/a><\/p>\n

Joint Operations Board meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has been three years in the making, and (Willmar Operations Director) Kyle Box is leading the initiative,\u201d Corbett said. \u201cWe\u2019ve done a lot of work with it, and we\u2019re at a point where (the City) Council can now make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Christopher<\/p>\n

Willmar Planning and Development Director Christopher Corbett<\/p>\n

Contributed \/ City of Willmar<\/p>\n

The construction bids will be for phase one of the initiative, according to Willmar City Administrator Leslie Valiant. Phase one is to install fiber to all residences and businesses west of First Street South between 19th Avenue Southwest and U.S. Highway 12, as well as construct the project\u2019s network operations center.<\/p>\n

However, if there are clusters of residences and businesses outside of phase one that have already signed up to receive the service, Valiant noted they may be included as well.<\/p>\n

\"Kyle<\/p>\n

Willmar City Operations Director Kyle Box<\/p>\n

Contributed \/ City of Willmar<\/p>\n

The initiative, which was dubbed <\/p>\n

Connect Willmar<\/a><\/p>\n

in January 2024 and is now being called\u00a0<\/p>\n

Willmar Connect,<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0is a community-driven effort to construct a $24.5 million city-owned, open-access, high-speed fiber network throughout the city of Willmar, focusing on digital equity and economic growth.<\/p>\n

Hometown Fiber<\/a><\/p>\n

will manage the system and the city plans to take out bonds to pay for its construction. Lease fees from the multiple internet service providers that will operate on the system will be used to pay the debt service on the bonds.<\/p>\n

There are currently three ISPs offering service on the network from which to choose \u2014 Zuma Internet, Broadband MN and Intellipop \u2014 with residential prices ranging from $50 for 500 megabits per second to $149.95 for eight gigabits per second. Those who sign up for the service can change their ISP at any time. <\/p>\n

Preorder sign-ups for the network began in May of this year and construction was also expected to begin earlier this year, but preorder sign-ups started off a little more slowly than expected. The city wanted to make sure it was going to perform as expected financially before moving forward with construction.<\/p>\n

Now, with more than 500 preorder sign-ups, the city is ready to move forward, according to Corbett.<\/p>\n

Valiant explained that the network\u2019s financial projections showed that it needed 212 users in the first year to cover the bond payments for the project and there are now 224 orders within the area of phase one. It is expected that at least 80% of those who have signed up will follow through with subscribing to the service, she added.<\/p>\n

\"Leslie<\/p>\n

Leslie Valiant, Willmar city administrator <\/p>\n

Contributed \/ City of Willmar<\/p>\n

She also explained that if a residence or business chooses not to get fiber to their home as the network is being constructed, but decides in the future to connect to the network, they will be charged for that installation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Jennifer Kotila is a reporter for West Central Tribune of Willmar, Minnesota. She focuses on local government, specifically the City of Willmar, and business. <\/p>\n

She can be reached via email at: jkotila@wctrib.com<\/a> or phone at 320-295-6115.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WILLMAR \u2014 Willmar Planning and Development Director Christopher Corbett dropped the news Thursday that the Willmar City Council…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[84141,84142,1638,84143,84144,84149,84145,84146,84147,86,56,54,55,84148,84150],"class_list":{"0":"post-192076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-christopher-corbett","9":"tag-connect-willmar","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-jennifer-kotila","12":"tag-leslie-valiant","13":"tag-mn-doing-with-broadband","14":"tag-municipal-broadband-network","15":"tag-municipal-owned-broadband-network","16":"tag-open-access-broadband-networks","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom","21":"tag-what-is-the-city-of-willmar","22":"tag-willmar-mn"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}