The Northeast Service Cooperative designed the Northeast Minnesota Middle Mile Fiber Project to expand broadband infrastructure through 915 miles of fiber optic cable connecting 250 critical sites across 8 counties. Funded with $43 million in federal grants and loans, the project aims to provide high-speed connectivity to unserved and underserved rural areas through public-private partnerships. The network establishes a regional fiber optic backbone with 14 facilities and over 2.8 terabits of switching capacity.

1. Northeast Service Cooperative
Northeast Minnesota Middle Mile Fiber Project

2. Middle Mile
 The Northeast Service Cooperative designed a
broadband infrastructure project, called the
Northeast Middle Mile Fiber Project, to make
dark fiber, wavelength services available to the
public sector and to private sector technology
service providers in unserved and underserved
rural areas of Northeast Minnesota.

3. Project Facts
 Developed and deployed by the Northeast Service
Cooperative
 $43 federal investment in Northeast Minnesota
(50/50 Grant/Loan)
 915 miles of fiber optic cable
 14 Optical Transport Network Facilities
throughout the region.
 Anchors connected with a minimum
Gigabit (1000Mbps) Connectivity and
up to 10Gbps
 2.8 Terabit current core switching capacity
using DWDM technology.

4. Project Map

5. Fiber Optic Backbone
 The Northeast Minnesota Middle Mile Fiber
 Project expands into eight counties in
 northeastern Minnesota including: St. Louis,
 Lake, Cook, Pine, Itasca, Aitkin, Koochiching and
Carlton.
 The network is designed to provide redundancy and
extend connectivity to underserved and unserved
areas.

6. Project Facts
 Connects about 250 critical service sites across the
region including:
 3 sovereign nations
 18 college and university sites
 8 counties
 18 independent school districts
 25 health care facilities
 26 community libraries
 More than 150 state, county and city sites including
Duluth and St. Louis County

7. Regional Fiber Project NSAs – Share of Total Project

8. Project Facts
 Construction will span at least 3 seasons involving 9
regional subcontractors and providing hundreds of
seasonal construction jobs at prevailing wages
 Scheduled for substantial completion (90%) by
November 15, 2013
 Full Completion by end of 2014

9. Last-Mile Connectivity
 Long term (20+ year) carrier level public/private
partnerships
 Agreements are in the form of; joint construction, capacity
exchange and Indefeasible Right of Use (IRU).
 Allow for extension of cost effective fiber based service to both
commercial private business and potential future residential
customers.
 Private partners include; Frontier Communications , ACS and
Compudyne with others pending.
 Public partners include ; AEC-Cook County (USDA) and Merit
Networks (NTIA)

10. Planning Goals for NESC
 Primary:
 Complete construction/connections for the broadband
project. Final completion of the USDA project in 2014.
 Address immediate requests by current members for
network expansion
 Network service and support
 Continue to Expand both
Public/Private Partnerships
 Full operations of regional
NAP Exchange with connections
to MPLS, Chicago and Canada.

11. Planning Goals for NESC
 Secondary:
 LAN consulting, design and engineering including cabling
integration and deployment and mobile/wireless solution
design and deployment
 Equipment inventory for purchase, lease, service and
support beyond the core
 Identify shared resources, best practices and economies
of scale in technology among all members of the regional
network
 Identify and serve new members in the regional network.

12. Planning Goals for NESC
 Tertiary:
 Virtualization deployment and management
 Data, server and application
hosting, storage, transport, licensing and security
 Integrated communications at the site, in the community and
across the region (distance

13. Project Questions?
 Contact:
 Paul Brinkman, Chief Executive Officer
 218-748-7603, paulb@nesc.k12.mn.us
 Lyle MacVey, Chief Technology Officer
 218-748-7623, lmacvey@nesc.k12.mn.us
 Melissa Cox, Communications Coordinator
 218-748-7603, mcox@nesc.k12.mn.us