Minnesota broadband access approaching 60 percent

According to Connect Minnesota, 57.4% of all Minnesotan households have access to broadband that has a minimum download speed of 10 Mbps and a minimum of 6 Mbps upload speed.  The sad part is that they are also reporting that 97.1% of all households have access to broadband.

They are making the figures look good by defining broadband as meeting download speeds of at least 768 Kbps and upload speeds of 200 Kbps.  This speed is a low-end DSL speed, and yes, it can be considered broadband.

Publishing this figure reports that an artificially-low 61,000 households in Minnesota have to use dial-up or no internet availability

For example, Olmsted County is reported to have 98.6% of it’s households have access to broadband.  Only 1.1% have a download/upload speeds of 10 Mbps/6 Mbps or greater.

Wabasha County reports only 98.6% have access to lower speed broadband but 37% have access to the high-speed broadband.

Fillmore County reports the lowest availability of the lower speed broadband of 78% and the uppermost availability of high-speed broadband of 39.3%.  The figures add up to more than 100% as there are households that have access to both speeds of broadband.

People with the lower “broadband” speeds shouldn’t expect movie streaming to go smoothly.  Also, if working from home includes large files, you would be much better going wireless with a 3G or 4G USB dongle.