April 29, 2026 — Arvig will begin construction this spring on an upgrade project to bring last-mile fiber connectivity to 446 structures in eight Minnesota counties.
Arvig was recently awarded grants totaling $3.4 million from the state’s Broadband Line Extension program after submitting successful lowest-cost bids to serve the locations. Arvig will invest another $442,000 to cover the remaining project costs, bringing the grand total of the project to $3.87 million. Upon completion later this year, 104.3 route miles of new fiber infrastructure will have been constructed.
The locations and number of structures to be served are:
- Becker County: 71 structures
- Clay County: 14 structures
- Kandiyohi County: 37 structures
- Lyon County: 7 structures
- Mower County: 20 structures
- Stearns County: 1 structure
- Todd County: 277 structures
- Yellow Medicine County: 19 structures
The program requires locations to be served with internet speeds of at least 100 Mbps download and 100 Mbps upload. Arvig expects to exceed that requirement, with plans to provide locations access to speeds of up to 1 Gig download and 100Mbps upload.
A location is considered unserved if it lacks access to a wired service with at least 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speed.
“The Line Extension Connection program has been a great asset to our efforts to serve rural Minnesota,” said David Arvig, Vice President and COO at Arvig. “It not only offsets the normally higher costs that come with serving these harder-to-reach areas, but it provides a path to the modern internet speeds that we all need.”
The Line Extension Connection program, administered by the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED), was created to bridge the gap in connecting homes and businesses just out of reach of existing last-mile infrastructure.