U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

36–465 WASHINGTON : 2019

FIELD HEARING: SCANDIA, MN: SMALL BUSINESSES 

AND THEIR LIMITATIONS WITHOUT RELIABLE 

ACCESS TO RURAL BROADBAND 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

UNITED STATES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

MAY 30, 2019 

Small Business Committee Document Number 116–024 

Available via the GPO Website: www.govinfo.gov 

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Congress.#13
(II) 

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS 

NYDIA VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York, Chairwoman 

ABBY FINKENAUER, Iowa 

JARED GOLDEN, Maine 

ANDY KIM, New Jersey 

JASON CROW, Colorado 

SHARICE DAVIDS, Kansas 

JUDY CHU, California 

MARC VEASEY, Texas 

DWIGHT EVANS, Pennsylvania 

BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois 

ADRIANO ESPAILLAT, New York 

ANTONIO DELGADO, New York 

CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania 

ANGIE CRAIG, Minnesota 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio, Ranking Member 

AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, American Samoa, Vice Ranking Member 

TRENT KELLY, Mississippi 

TROY BALDERSON, Ohio 

KEVIN HERN, Oklahoma 

JIM HAGEDORN, Minnesota 

PETE STAUBER, Minnesota 

TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee 

ROSS SPANO, Florida 

JOHN JOYCE, Pennsylvania 

ADAM MINEHARDT, Majority Staff Director 

MELISSA JUNG, Majority Deputy Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

KEVIN FITZPATRICK, Staff Director 

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C O N T E N T S 

OPENING STATEMENTS 

Page 

Hon. Jared Golden ................................................................................................... 1 

Hon. Pete Stauber ................................................................................................... 3 

WITNESSES 

Mr. Adam Artz, Realtor, Realty Executives, Blaine, MN ..................................... 6 

Mr. Marc Johnson, Director, East Central Minnesota Educational Cable Cooperative, Braham, MN ........................................................................................... 8 

Mr. Greg Carlson, Executive Director of Partnered & Affiliated Boards, Cambridge Presbyterian Homes, Roseville, MM ....................................................... 11 

Mr. Matt Crescenzo, Owner, Bulltear Industries, Inc., Scandia, MN ................. 13 

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statements: 

Mr. Adam Artz, Realtor, Realty Executives, Blaine, MN ............................. 27 

Mr. Marc Johnson, Director, East Central Minnesota Educational Cable 

Cooperative, Braham, MN ............................................................................ 28 

Mr. Greg Carlson, Executive Director of Partnered & Affiliated Boards, 

Cambridge Presbyterian Homes, Roseville, MN ........................................ 33 

Mr. Matt Crescenzo, Owner, Bulltear Industries, Inc., Scandia, MN .......... 37 

Questions for the Record: 

None. 

Answers for the Record: 

None. 

Additional Material for the Record: 

None. 

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SMALL BUSINESSES AND THEIR LIMITATIONS 

WITHOUT RELIABLE ACCESS TO RURAL 

BROADBAND 

THURSDAY, MAY 30, 2019 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SMALL BUSINESS, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONTRACTING AND INFRASTRUCTURE, 

Washington, DC. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., at 

Bulltear Industries, 24543 Olinda Trail N., Scandia, MN, Hon. 

Jared Golden presiding. 

Present: Representatives Golden, Craig, Stauber, and Hagedorn. 

Chairman GOLDEN. The Committee will come to order, and I 

want to thank everyone for joining us this morning. I especially 

want to thank the witnesses for being here today. 

I would also like to thank Mr. Stauber for welcoming me to Minnesota. 

For those of you that don’t know, I am Congressman Jared Golden from the State of Maine. I represent Maine’s 2nd Congressional 

District, and I am the Chair of this Subcommittee of the Small 

Business Committee. Congressman Stauber is the Ranking Member. 

In our short time in Congress together, he and I have worked together to get things done for small businesses. We are working on 

a bill to make sure they have the contracting opportunities that 

Congress intended, and I look forward to working with him on this 

important topic which impacts Sandia and towns in my district 

back home in Maine. 

Access to a robust broadband connection is critical for small businesses and the communities they serve. However, 25 million Americans lack access to high-speed Internet. Many of these Americans 

reside in rural parts of the country where it is more difficult and 

expensive to build out broadband networks. In fact, 58 percent of 

rural Americans believe that lack of access to high-speed Internet 

is a problem in their hometown. In my home district, parts of 

which are very rural—in fact, it is the second most rural congressional district in the United States—37,000 people do not have access to a wired high-speed Internet connection, and 9,000 do not 

have a wired connection at all. 

This lack of access is particularly damaging to small businesses 

attempting to enter the market and compete with businesses in 

more urban areas. Nationwide, 39 percent of homes in rural areas 

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out access to reliable Internet, small firms in rural areas miss opportunities to connect with new customers and cannot take advantage of cost-saving tools like digital payment processing and online 

distribution services. Children in rural areas also need access to 

high-speed broadband to utilize educational tools so we can usher 

in the next generation of tech-savvy entrepreneurs. 

Rural communities need more resources to close the digital divide, which is why I wrote a letter to the Chairman of the FCC 

calling for policies that foster innovative technology in places where 

fiber cannot reach. In Maine, about 5.5 percent of households are 

connected to a fiber-optic network. A mixed technology model and 

access to unlicensed spectrum is needed to establish connections in 

extremely rural parts of our country. Because we know that economic growth—the kind small businesses provide to communities— 

will help to revitalize rural areas and make them attractive places 

to live, we need to invest in digital infrastructure, which is why I 

am happy to raise this issue to ensure that rural broadband is a 

top priority in any major infrastructure package done by Congress. 

I am very proud to serve on the House Rural Broadband 

Taskforce to advance a transformative agenda to ensure that all 

Americans have access to high-speed broadband by the year 2025. 

That is the goal. This work will include ensuring Federal funding 

goes to the places in our country like Minnesota and Maine, places 

that need it most, and identifying innovative approaches to accomplishing affordable universal broadband coverage. 

And just a quick note, going off-script on that, I will tell you that 

in Maine, where I come from, just in the last couple of weeks traveling around, you probably heard Congress talk about things like 

USDA grants and other things that are available to rural areas to 

help establish broadband service. The problem is sometimes the 

rules that get set up actually exclude the very people it is meant 

to help. So I have municipalities come to me all the time and say 

we would love to get a USDA grant to lay down some fiber and establish broadband for our community, but the FCC says we are not 

eligible for the grant because the ISP claims that they are already 

providing the service. But if you live there, if you go there, that is 

just not really the case. So it is a big issue and one that Congressman Stauber and I have worked on together. 

Before I shut myself down here and turn it over to the Ranking 

Member, I just want to say a word about him, and I will begin by 

thanking you all here who live in his district for sending him down 

to Washington. It is certainly sometimes a rather hostile environment. I think you are probably all in agreement that it feels like 

our politics could be a lot better and that it is a divisive time in 

our country, and I have found working with Congressman Stauber 

to be just a gift, and I feel fortunate to be chairing a committee 

with a Ranking Member like he is, someone who is thoughtful, 

civil, and he is there focused on actually—well, he is mission oriented. The Marine in me I think would put it that way. He wants 

to get things done and not play games. It makes the work that we 

do on the Committee that much easier. I am looking forward to another year-and-a-half working with him. 

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Thank you again for the invitation. I think this is a great field 

hearing, a great topic, one that is critically important to your community. 

And with that, I will turn the microphone over to the Ranking 

Member. 

Mr. STAUBER. Thank you very much, Chair Golden. I really do 

appreciate you coming to our great state of Minnesota to chair this 

Committee hearing today. 

I want to thank all of you for coming out to this hearing. For us, 

this is bringing Washington, D.C. to the local level. That is exactly 

where it is supposed to be, and I am really appreciative of you all 

showing up here and really talking about this important issue 

here, not only in rural Minnesota but rural America. 

So these hearings, this is an official record of Congress. It will 

be put forth, and we want to hear what we hear back and try to 

legislate for reforms and monies that can help distribute 

broadband, deploy broadband throughout the country. 

So, good morning, and thank all of you for being with us today 

in beautiful Scandia, Minnesota. I have a lot of people to thank. 

First and foremost, I want to thank our witnesses. Each of you 

have sacrificed an incredible amount of your time to be with us 

today, and I can’t acknowledge you enough for sharing your perspectives with us. 

I would like to especially recognize Matt, the owner of Bulltear 

Industries here, as well as your family and your co-workers who 

are hosting us today. 

I would also like to recognize the efforts of Melissa Young and 

Lauren Fink from the staff of the Chairwoman of the Full Small 

Business Committee, Ms. Vela ́zquez of New York, for being here 

with us today to make sure things go smoothly. 

Finally, I would like to thank all state and local elected officials 

for coming out today and for the work you do here in Minnesota 

in your respective cities, townships, and counties. 

I would also like to thank Congresswoman Angie Craig for being 

here today, taking some time. I know both you and Congressman 

Hagedorn are very busy today, so coming up and spending some 

time with us—and we work on the Small Business Committee together. So, Congresswoman Craig, thanks for your time today. 

Congressman Hagedorn, I also want to thank you for being here 

today. We spend some time, quite a bit of time, as you know, on 

the Small Business Committee working on behalf of Minnesota, in 

particular rural Minnesotans. So thank you both for being here. 

And before I begin, I want to also thank and recognize my colleague from Maine, Chairman Golden. I sincerely thank you for 

being here and taking the trip to Minnesota to hold this hearing. 

Congressman Golden grew up in Leeds, Maine. It is a small rural 

town in Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, and after the September 11th terrorist attacks on our nation, he enlisted in the 

United States Marine Corps and served four years in the military 

as an infantryman, deploying to Afghanistan in 2004 and Iraq in 

2005 and 2006. Like me, he is in his first term in the House of 

Representatives, and he represents a very large part of a very rural 

state. And yet, again like me, he has a passion for working on the 

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solutions to the problems that plague our nation’s job creators, our 

small businesses. 

So don’t let everything you see on TV and read in the papers fool 

you about how broken Washington is. Some things actually work 

in D.C. At the Small Business Committee, we work together in a 

very bipartisan way to get things done. So I want to express my 

gratitude to Jared for being here with us today and thank him for 

his commitment to working across the aisle for America’s small 

businesses and men and women. 

In 2018, 95 percent of Americans owned a cellphone, and 89 percent of Americans used the Internet. It is clear, technology has influenced nearly every aspect of society, from manufacturing to education, access to technology. Small business specifically requires access to reliable and affordable technology to compete in the market. 

According to a recent study, digitally advanced small businesses 

were shown to be three times more likely to create jobs and experience revenue growth, four times higher than small businesses who 

didn’t employ the technology. Yet despite such outstanding terms, 

many small businesses do not take full advantage of the technologies available to them. Often this is due to the owners not realizing the benefits of such tools, or they simply lack access to reliable technology resources as a result of cost or location. 

Today, more than 24 million Americans lack access to high-speed 

Internet, the vast majority of whom live in rural communities. In 

Minnesota specifically, over 400,000 people do not have access, and 

those that are lucky enough to have access may only have one provider to choose from. In a world where choices seem abundant, 

many Minnesotans are left optionless. 

When comparing urban and rural broadband deployment, 97.9 

percent of urban America has access to both fixed and mobile 

broadband, while only 68 percent of rural citizens have that same 

access. We cannot continue to leave our constituents behind just 

because they chose to live in rural communities. The lack of a solid 

business for rural broadband deployment remains the central reason for what is often referred to as the digital divide. 

Large telecommunications companies have little incentive to invest in broadband infrastructure in areas with low population density. Instead, small telecommunications carriers are far more likely 

to invest in rural communities, often because they are their communities. Frequently, however, these small firms face numerous 

challenges in their efforts to increase broadband access. 

Without the ability to disseminate the high cost of deployment or 

leveraged economies of scale, small telecommunications companies 

often rely on assistance from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Agriculture to mitigate these high 

costs. Back in Washington, we have heard from small telecom providers that serve rural areas that recent improvements to these 

programs have helped, but as always more can be done and will 

likely be done in an upcoming infrastructure bill. 

That is why today’s hearing is so important. We need to know 

what our communities need to serve them better. I am very much 

looking forward to this discussion, and again I thank you all for 

being here. 

Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

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Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, Mr. Stauber. 

Actually, I am going to hand it right back to you and let you introduce the witnesses because this is your town, your district I 

should say. 

Mr. STAUBER. Okay, thank you. 

Our first witness is Adam Artz. He is the Owner of Realty Executives in Blaine, Minnesota. Originally hailing from Grass Lake, 

Michigan, he attended Saginaw Valley State University and majored in accounting. He has applied his trade all over the United 

States, working in North Carolina, Washington State, and New 

York, before finally seeing the light and moving here to the best 

state in the nation, Minnesota. 

[Applause.] 

Mr. STAUBER. He has been selling real estate in Minnesota and 

Wisconsin since 2000. Realty Executives has 20-plus agents and 

has approximately $50 million in yearly sales. 

Thank you for being here. 

Our next witness is Marc Johnson, the Executive Director of 

East Central Minnesota Educational Cable Cooperative, a telecommunications, technology, and distance learning cooperative of 

14 K-12 school districts and Pine Technical and Community College in East Central Minnesota. Marc has worked on rural 

broadband issues since 2011, when the Kennebec Broadband Initiative began their work. He has worked with Pine, Mille Lacs, and 

Chisago Counties in recent years, and currently works with Isanti 

County High-Speed Internet Task Force. Marc has been part of the 

Minnesota K-12 Connect Forward, working with the group since its 

launch in 2016. This initiative is a joint partnership between the 

Minnesota Department of Education, the Department of Employment and Economic Development, and the National Non-Profit 

Education Superhighway who together are working to ensure that 

all students in Minnesota have access to the infrastructure and 

high-speed affordable bandwidth. 

Thank you for being here. 

Up next is Greg Carlson, the Executive Director of Partnered and 

Affiliated Boards at Cambridge Presbyterian Homes in Roseville, 

Minnesota. Presbyterian Homes stands on a rich and dedicated history of service and care for older adults in the Cambridge community. Grace Point Crossings opened in 1962 and affiliated with the 

Presbyterian Homes and Service in 2006. Presbyterian Homes and 

Service, or PHS, is a non-profit, faith-based organization providing 

a broad variety of high-quality housing choices, care, and service 

options for older adults. PHS serves over 25,000 older adults 

through 46 PHS-affiliated senior living communities in Wisconsin, 

Minnesota, and Iowa. PHS has earned the reputation as an innovative leader concerned with promoting independence, vitality, and 

well-being for those they serve. 

Thank you for being here. 

And last, our final witness today is our host, Matt Crescenzo, the 

Owner of Bulltear Industries here in Scandia, Minnesota. Bulltear 

was founded in 1989 and has been serving the auto parts industry 

ever since, providing custom-built milled and machine specialty 

auto parts nationwide. Matt and his wife Krista have three young 

daughters, and Krista works as a nurse at Gillette’s Children’s 

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Hospital in downtown St. Paul. In addition to his work at Bulltear, 

he trains people of all ages on advanced manufacturing techniques. 

Thank you for being here. 

And now, Mr. Chair, I will yield back. 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much. 

I have to say that back in Washington, on the full Small Business Committee, I didn’t really realize just how much Minnesota 

had infiltrated the Small Business Committee. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman GOLDEN. But sitting up here, it is brutally honest 

that Maine is completely outnumbered on the Committee. But I 

will say on behalf of my three colleagues, it says a lot if you choose 

to be on something like the Small Business Committee. It is not 

the most exciting, it doesn’t get the most attention from the press 

and the media and things of that nature, but it is a great place to 

try and do some good work for your community, so be sure to thank 

them for that. 

Normally, this is the part where I would talk about all the rules 

around testimony, mostly about time limits, 5 minutes each and 

then 5 minutes of questioning for people sitting up here, but I 

think we are going to do it a little more informal than usual. So 

we are not going to enforce some kind of clock on you, but I would 

just say maybe be mindful of the length of your testimony so that 

there is a good opportunity for some questions and back and forth. 

That is where I think the real educational part of the hearing will 

take place. 

So, with that, I am going to recognize Mr. Artz for your opening 

remarks. 

STATEMENTS OF ADAM ARTZ, REALTOR, REALTY EXECUTIVES, BLAINE, MN; MARC JOHNSON, DIRECTOR, EAST CENTRAL MINNESOTA EDUCATIONAL CABLE COOPERATIVE, 

BRAHAM, MN; GREG CARLSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF 

PARTNERED & AFFILIATED BOARDS, CAMBRIDGE PRESBYTERIAN HOMES, ROSEVILLE, MN; MATT CRESCENZO, 

OWNER, BULLTEAR INDUSTRIES, INC., SCANDIA, MN 

STATEMENT OF ADAM ARTZ 

Mr. ARTZ. Thank you. Can everyone hear me okay? 

Good morning and thank you. Thank you so much for being here 

today on this important topic. It is my pleasure to share with you 

my feelings on this topic. 

You know, I think too much today people run to the government 

for everything. Government can’t be all things to all people. But 

there are instances when things fall through the cracks, and that 

is when I think government can play a role, and I think that is exactly what this is. 

Internet is no longer a luxury. It is the foundation for the future 

growth and success of a community. Or it is a common denominator. Lack of it is a common denominator of failure and decline 

via the negative impacts that non-good Internet has. 

Personally for me, it has impacted my life in a couple of different 

ways. 

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Number one, it has impacted my family. I have a couple of 

daughters that attended North Branch High School. I live in North 

Branch. I have offices in Blaine and in North Branch. My oldest 

daughter graduated in 2009. It has been a while, but nothing has 

changed. And to hear their frustration of getting cut off the Internet or not being able to get on the Internet, not being able to do 

homework, they can’t upload a picture, and hearing their frustrations about that, and even later kids, I have spent some time in 

the school up there, and nothing has changed. My youngest daughter graduated in 2012; same same, and same same today. 

I mean, that is a problem. When they are frustrated, kids are 

frustrated and it is a source of stress, when there is unnecessary 

difficulty, it negatively impacts their ability to engage and excel. 

When that happens, that is a problem. I mean, there couldn’t be 

anything more important than empowering. You can’t make anybody win, but as a business person I put my people in a position 

to win, and I think that is what I think we need to focus on, making sure our kids have that opportunity to win instead of the negative impact of making it hard on them and putting roadblocks in 

front of them. I think that is an awesome thing for Congress and 

all of us to focus on. Certainly that can be bipartisan, something 

that we all care about our kids. 

The second way it has impacted me is as a business owner. I own 

a small real estate company, like I said, in Blaine and in North 

Branch. I have been in business for a while. It used to be when— 

I sold my first piece of property in 1985, of all things. It has been 

a while. But the first question we used to be asked was, ‘‘Tell me 

about the schools.’’ 

Today, I bet nine out of ten times it is, ‘‘Tell me about the Internet,’’ because in my business we don’t house agents anymore. Your 

phone is your office, and I think that is the same for all of us 

today. I mean, our phone, our smart phone is our connection to the 

world, and I think that is true with my real estate business. I just 

had a situation last fall, a house in my neighborhood in North 

Branch—great house, $329,000. Because of the situation, they 

bought a house in Forest Lake, less of a house for more money because of the Internet. So what that does is it impacts the community, makes it less desirable, less value, and it just hurts it. 

I can’t upload pics from my house. I am right on the city limits 

in North Branch, right on Highway 5, if you know North Branch. 

I am just on the city limits, and I can’t upload pictures to the MLS 

unless I go into my office, which is right in downtown. I mean, the 

core of downtown is okay, but as you get out, I am maybe two or 

three miles out of town and I can’t upload a picture. Needless to 

say, you should hear me when I have to drive up to the office at 

7:30 to get an initial on a piece of paper. I promised I wouldn’t 

swear, but I promise you I do then when I have to do that, going 

into town. I mean, that is crazy today. 

The majority of all paperwork in our industry today is electronic 

signature, and stored electronically. When you can’t do that, it 

makes my job really hard and it impacts my business, impacts the 

community. If two identical homes are available and one doesn’t 

have Internet, that is a huge impact on values of real estate. 

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I want to stay brief, and I think you get the gist of what I am 

saying. But, you know, negative impact builds, just like positive. It 

is a spiral. And we are negatively impacting our communities with 

lack of good Internet, negatively impact a family, negatively impact 

a business. Those things add up. I wrote negative impact on family 

plus negative impact on business equals rural communities in decline, and you see that all the time now in the paper about some 

small town out in Western Minnesota that is shrinking and turning 

into a ghost town. 

I think one of the things the Internet does do is it makes the 

community smaller and it makes them part of the community. I 

just wonder how much of a role that has played in Minnesota, because the housing out in those areas is very affordable. I mean, 

where you look in the core of the Twin Cities now, housing is really 

unaffordable to many, many people, and I think a huge help with 

that is being able to have people out where housing is more affordable. 

The old saying ‘‘drive until you can buy,’’ well, when that Internet runs out, that becomes not an option, and it is just a recipe for 

disaster to do that. 

Top-notch Internet is a foundation for growth and success, or a 

huge roadblock, and we all get to choose. 

And I am going to leave you with this one last thing. 

We have a remote-controlled vehicle on Mars, but I can’t get on 

the Internet in North Branch. I mean, see what I am saying? So 

I would really appreciate anybody’s help in fixing this as soon as 

possible. And I brought a map of Mars with me, but Miranda 

wouldn’t let me show that to you guys. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ARTZ. So I gave it to her. I will give it to her as a souvenir. 

But thanks again so much for being here, and please fix this immediately. 

[Applause.] 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much, sir. That was great. 

Mr. Johnson, you are up. 

STATEMENT OF MARC JOHNSON 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Chair Golden, Representative 

Stauber, Representative Craig, Representative Hagedorn, members, staff, guests. Thanks for holding this hearing today and for 

the opportunity to speak before the Committee this morning. 

Small businesses are the lifeblood of communities and rural 

areas in East Central Minnesota, as you have heard, throughout 

the state and around the nation. Agriculture, tourism, hospitality, 

manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and other sectors rely on the 

Internet to communicate with suppliers and customers, to provide 

their services, and to stay viable. These businesses also need an 

educated workforce willing to live and raise families in the rural 

areas. 

Without access to affordable high-speed Internet, businesses cannot thrive, families are less likely to locate in the area, and it is 

difficult to provide a fair and equitable education. Those of us who 

commit to life in a rural community are sort of forced to get by and 

make do with what we have. 

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Northland Automation and Engineering is an engineering and 

manufacturing company located in rural Kanabec County just a 

few miles from Mora, Minnesota. The business is located on the 

farm of the company owner. If he or one of his employees wants 

to utilize simple video conferencing to meet with a client, perhaps 

show some parts, talk about customization, they often must make 

a 30-minute round-trip into town to utilize an available location 

with high-speed access capable of providing a stable video connection. He gets by, but he comments about the limitations his company has for expansion and taking on new clients due to when he 

is hampered by poor broadband access. 

And there are all kinds of stories like that, similar to this one, 

and as you just heard from Mr. Artz, people will decide not to locate in areas with poor broadband access and services. If we want 

a diverse workforce, strong communities, and ample opportunities 

for everyone to reach their potential, we must move beyond just 

getting by. 

How does education fit into this scenario? We live in a digital 

world, and education is no different. The Internet is routinely used 

for research, collaboration, communication, and general learning. 

We also know that learning does not take place only within the 

walls of a school building. 

In education, we cannot just ‘‘get by.’’ It is not okay for us to 

leave 20 percent or more of our students without the same learning 

opportunities as the other 80 percent. In the world of digital learning, that is exactly what is happening. In reference to one of the 

maps that I have included in the packet, according to statistics 

from the Minnesota Office of Broadband Development, eight of the 

twelve school districts in the Region 7E economic development 

area, East Central Minnesota, are below 80 percent for percentage 

of households served by broadband speeds that fit the FCC definition of broadband, and two of the districts are below 50 percent. 

So essentially, in these areas, we are leaving 20 percent to 50 

percent of our residents behind, many of whom have children, some 

of whom are trying to run a farm or a small business from their 

home, and others who may be accessing online courses or completing assignments from higher education institutions. We have 

several technical and community colleges in this area who have 

many students who are not able to get to campus to access the 

Internet. They need to be able to do their assignments and so on 

from home. That is difficult when you don’t have good access. 

Most of the K-12 school districts in our region, have placed mobile devices in the hands of their students intended to be used both 

in class and at home, and they are often cited as one of the most 

impactful technology-related tools for teaching and learning. 

Troy Anderson, Principal at Pine City High School, says: ‘‘Without a doubt, Chromebooks have been the most impactful for our 

district. They have started to replace textbooks and are used for 

communication between students and staff.’’ 

Dr. Ray Queener, Superintendent for Cambridge-Isanti School, 

adds: ‘‘As curriculum continues to migrate to digital and as more 

and more resources are available digitally, our Chromebook 1:1 initiative has greatly impacted teaching and learning in our district.’’ 

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Minnesota has a grassroots project called the Minnesota Partnership for Collaborative Curriculum. I am proud to say that the 

schools in ECMECC were pioneering members of this collaborative, 

and it has grown to involve over 225 school districts. The goal of 

this project is to create a comprehensive collection of digital open 

resources in the four core subject areas for grades 3-12. These resources are created by educators and centered around Minnesota’s 

content standards and made available to Minnesota schools at no 

cost. They are designed to be used with the mobile devices that students are using and have the potential to replace the use of expensive textbooks and purchased content. 

However, in our region, expensive and slow broadband hampers 

our ability to fully utilize these resources that our teachers helped 

create. 

Dean Kapsner, Superintendent of Isle Schools, comments on this, 

saying: ‘‘The lack of reliable Internet access affects how we can deliver curriculum and assignments outside the school day and has 

stalled our efforts to create a viable e-learning plan.’’ 

Steve Bistrup, Technology Coordinator in Milaca, agrees, writing: 

‘‘The lack of rural broadband has played a significant role in limiting our ability to fully transition to digital learning.’’ 

As with small businesses trying to thrive in this environment, 

schools find ways to make do. Long route buses in some of our districts are equipped with onboard Wi-Fi. Schools have purchased 

mobile hotspots to provide to students without adequate home access. But these solutions only work in areas where there is a reliable cellular connection, which cannot be assumed in many rural 

parts of our area. In fact, when I drove up, I didn’t have a cell connection, or a very minimal one when I got here. We are not very 

far from a town. Other accommodations include keeping areas of 

the school open longer, providing printed or other offline materials, 

extending deadlines, et cetera. All of these accommodations result 

in some students not receiving the same, or in some cases even 

similar, educational opportunities. 

The Minnesota legislature passed a law in 2017 that allowed 

schools to use e-learning days in lieu of weather-related school closings, which around here we have quite often. You probably do in 

Maine, as well. To count as an instructional day, students need to 

be able to access assignments and resources online, and teachers 

need to be available online to answer questions. That is written 

into the law. This winter, some Minnesota districts utilized more 

than five of these days. In our region, no schools were able to take 

advantage of this opportunity because they could not count on all 

students or staff having adequate Internet access. 

Superintendent Robert Prater of Hinckley-Finlayson schools indicated: ‘‘We do not use e-learning days because broadband is not reliable enough or widespread enough.’’ 

Amanda Thompson, Technology Integration Specialist at East 

Central Schools, agrees, saying: ‘‘I have concerns about both students and staff being able to access the Internet from home to fully 

engage in an e-learning day.’’ 

Our students and families are being left behind in the digital 

age. Craig Schultz, Superintendent of Schools in Mora, asks: ‘‘Is it 

truly a free and appropriate education when there are significant 

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broadband issues between families just miles apart within a district, let alone across districts in the state?’’ 

We need to resolve this issue or families will move away from 

rural areas with poor access and inequitable educational opportunities. There will be fewer people to fill the jobs in small businesses 

that have tried to get by, and our rural communities and way of 

life will wither away. Like rural electrification and telephone did 

for rural areas in their times, we need rural broadband to make 

rural living viable and a choice that people want to seek out rather 

than flee. 

Thank you. 

[Applause.] 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Carlson? 

STATEMENT OF GREG CARLSON 

Mr. CARLSON. Representatives, I would thank you for hosting 

this, and Committee members, thank you for your time here and 

the opportunity to address this issue. We are going to come at it 

from a health care perspective. 

For most of us, the word ‘‘home’’ holds a special meaning. You 

may recall the song recorded by Elvis Presley, ‘‘Home is Where the 

Heart Is.’’ Now, I am not going to sing it for you, but he describes 

home with the following lyrics: ‘‘I don’t need a mansion on a hill 

that overlooks the sea, anywhere you’re with me is home. Maybe 

I’m a rolling stone who won’t amount to much, but everything that 

I hold dear is close enough to touch.’’ 

And near the end of the movie The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy clicked 

her heels and stated, ‘‘There’s no place like home.’’ She longed to 

leave the wonderland of Oz for her simple, dusty old farmhouse in 

rural Kansas. 

As healthcare providers, we are called to help individuals and 

their families live well in the place they call home, and in our rural 

county that may be the family farm, or in mid-winter Minnesota 

it may feel more like an igloo, cold outside but warm inside. The 

idea of living a long, healthy life at home hits a home run for the 

people of rural Minnesota. 

Imagine for a moment a seamless coordinated care model made 

possible by new technology resulting in better patient outcomes 

and a purposeful, cost-effective, self-fulfilling healthcare experience. One way to accomplish this objective is to reduce our reliance 

on our acute care, rescue-oriented health system while reinvesting 

those dollars in life enrichment and purposeful living in the place 

one calls home. 

Data provided by Kaiser Health shows that long-term, only about 

10 percent of our individual overall health is driven by our health 

system. Not surprisingly, most of health is driven by where we live, 

our home environment, our genetics, and our behaviors. 

Approximately 40,000 people live in Isanti County. Nearly 60 

percent reside outside the city limits of Braham, Cambridge, and 

the City of Isanti. Most of these rural households have less than 

adequate Internet, making it difficult to access preventive 

healthcare services, leaving them susceptible to fragmented, episodic care and poorer health outcomes. 

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Electronic health records, technology-based patient engagement 

strategies, health information sharing, and remote monitoring technologies all require high-bandwidth broadband connections. Such 

telehealth technologies help overcome many of the obstacles to 

healthcare delivery confronting our rural communities. In particular, we see enormous potential to expand access to certain services and improved patient outcomes, including what we hear a lot 

about today, mental health and addiction services. 

Telemedicine and mobile health are rapidly emerging as cost-effective solutions to overcoming many of the obstacles to healthcare 

delivery. The proper infrastructure must be in place to allow for 

these and other technologies to be implemented in the home. 

Consider the potential of a simple array of sensors strategically 

placed throughout a residence of a home-bound adult. Without infringing on their privacy, these sensors link to a computer program 

and could monitor things such as room temperature and/or whether 

the refrigerator door has been opened or not, usual patterns of motion, lighting and various home safety devices. Any unusual interruption or change in pattern would alert the designated family 

member, a friend, a neighbor, or a healthcare person that would be 

able to respond if appropriate and necessary. 

For the Cambridge Medical Center, planning involves leveraging 

technology for the patient-facing experience and interaction. The 

objective is to enhance the online experience by expanding the 

reach of telehealth and mobile health technology with improved access to online scheduling, video visits, medical messaging with patients, and online video education. This, in turn, leads to shorter 

wait times, screening concerns before an emergency occurs. 

Limited access to high-bandwidth broadband connections is a 

concern for physicians. Specialists are often required to access files 

or view images initially from home to expedite a medical intervention such as urgent care or emergency care services. Dr. Amy 

Haupert, a family practice physician at the Cambridge Medical 

Center, shared with me that in addition to a full day of meeting 

with patients, she spends two or more additional hours completing 

required documentation. As a result, accessing patient medical 

records at home is essential for her to balance work and family life. 

Reviewing progress notes, completing insurance forms, scheduling, 

responding to patient concerns, these issues require physicians to 

have access to medical records 24/7. 

It is no secret that resources are being stretched in healthcare. 

Labor is tightening, and providers are being asked to do more with 

less, while assuring patient safety and satisfaction. Healthcare is 

quickly moving from fee-for-service to a value-based delivery system. Success will require the ability to deploy telehealth, particularly as part of care management programs. 

Ensuring communities in rural areas can take full advantage of 

the benefits of telehealth solutions requires access to reliable and 

affordable broadband connections. Telehealth offers a wide range of 

benefits, immediate access to care, reduced cost, and offers more 

convenient care options and improved care outcomes. 

The Isanti County Broadband Task Force and area health care 

providers appreciate your focus on expanding broadband 

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connectivity, and we are grateful for the opportunity to share our 

rural perspective. Thank you. 

[Applause.] 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, Mr. Carlson. 

Mr. Crescenzo, thank you for hosting us here in the shop today, 

and we look forward to hearing what you have to say. 

STATEMENT OF MATT CRESCENZO 

Mr. CRESCENZO. Hello, friends and neighbors. My name is 

Matthew Crescenzo. I am a 44-year-old father of three young girls 

and a husband to my wife Krista. Krista is a nurse at Gillette Children’s Hospital, located in St. Paul, Minnesota, and works in the 

child brain injury rehab unit. I work in this building designing 

automated machines like our Star Lab CNC plasma machine. The 

Star Lab is a CNC machine that uses the fourth state of matter 

to cut materials along a computer program path. I am the chief engineer of the machine, and together with our partner Hypertherm, 

we offer an outstanding machine in this market. 

I train folks at universities, high schools, businesses, and garages, and I have trained well over 700 times across the USA and 

have been fortunate enough to train the deaf and have quadriplegic 

customers who are among the sharpest minds. 

The place you are sitting at was only possible through use of the 

Internet, a unique gift of communication between people. We would 

be having this meeting near a 100-year-old barn ready to collapse; 

wouldn’t that be exciting? 

When I suffered a spinal injury on the job, my world became 

small. Frustration and desperation were weighing heavily on my 

heart. I pooled my resources and stretched my mind’s capability beyond my expected personal limits. With the help of my good friend 

David Boucher, who currently works at Toro company and who set 

up a website for me, I was able to take my ideas and my dreams 

of machine products, bringing them to the Internet and discovered 

a vast amount of interest in these parts that I dreamed and engineered. I was able to take my passions to market. 

It was the Internet that allowed this to exist out of the idea of 

offering something awesome for a good price. I could not have done 

it without the Internet and without my father, Peter Reed 

Crescenzo, who challenged and supported me, sometimes challenged more than supported. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. CRESCENZO. But that is a father’s burden. I love and respect my father. 

Where this company has come so far today I could not have 

imagined years ago. We have seemingly unlimited potential for 

growth here. We are ready to take the next steps, and I am ready 

to take a paycheck. 

We fumble through our day using the local Internet. It is as important now as it was when I started this business. We even have 

a dedicated line of 10 megabits up and 10 megabits down, which 

really wouldn’t get you a hot dog in the Twin Cities, and that is 

nearly $300 a month. That is the very top capability of our monopolized service provider. 

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We deal with dropped calls when using the Internet and rebooting our modem several times a day. I thought I was alone. For 

years we were rebooting our modem in the house, in the shop. It 

wasn’t until my friends and neighbors told me they do the same 

thing. 

Our business relies on positive customer experience, not volume, 

but the network of very happy customers has kept us busy—and 

boy, are we busy. We are grateful for that. 

It is crucial to our success that we can upload training videos, 

download customer files, and talk on the phone without interruption. The infrastructure is toast out here. We need a way forward. 

The technology has moved beyond our rural areas 20 years ago. 

I have seen businesses close because they cannot have a robust security system tied to the Internet or really cannot develop without 

access to high-speed Internet. 

Businesses are moving out of state not only because of local ordinances but because of the vast desert of little to no-speed Internet 

that we have here. 

Friends and neighbors, we need real help for our community to 

prosper. I commend you folks before us for shining a bright light 

on our dimly lit network. 

Communication between people is what makes good communities 

and binds the heart of mankind. The invention of the Internet was 

brilliant, and I believe it was inevitable. 

However, without bolstering our community and supporting 

ideas like this, we remain in a very dark age. 

The industrial revolution is not over. It has changed, and we 

compete with the world now. In many ways, industries have gotten 

cleaner, better, and smarter. For example, our partner Hypertherm 

is a gleaming example of an employee-owned Fortune 500 company 

that takes green to the next level without sacrificing quality. 

But we need faster Internet out here. This business needs to get 

training videos online, download customer videos, and get our service and support to today’s standards. We are struggling daily with 

this. 

In ending, I would like to thank you for coming out to our field 

of dreams, and I look forward to your comments and questions. 

Thank you. 

[Applause.] 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much for that, sir. And 

thanks again for having us here. 

I can’t help but listen to the four of you and think about back 

home. The similarities are quite striking. So I thought I would just 

throw out a couple of questions to you to kick it off. There are no 

right or wrong answers here. We are really here to listen and 

learn. 

Just so you all have a sense of the types of things that we think 

about on the Small Business Committee, Congressman Stauber 

and I, it is not just things like having broadband access that we 

think about. It is also the ways that government sometimes makes 

decisions that get in the way, makes decisions not really understanding areas like this one. 

Back home in Maine, just as an example of that, Madawaska, 

Maine is a paper mill town up on the northern border, right on the 

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Canadian border, and up there I was talking to a gentleman running a small business. It wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the paper 

mill, and he is a big part of their supply chain. But having access 

to faster Internet is one of the chief challenges that holds him back 

from growing. 

He does a lot of work with the SBA historically, when he needed 

a loan or something of that nature to make an extension, make a 

good investment in his business, and lately he stopped working 

with them because SBA has gone ahead, in their infinite wisdom, 

and said, well, we are in a digital age now, so we are going to move 

everything online. He used to fill out all the forms and applications 

by paper, and he finds it so much slower and frustrating now because his Internet speed is so much slower than advertised, and he 

finds it frustrating. He will be halfway through the process and all 

of a sudden the thing stops working and he has to start all over 

again. It drives him nuts. So now he is going to other lenders instead of using an SBA program that is there to give him a lower 

interest loan and help a small business grow. 

So those are the types of small decisions that we are also, I 

think, always looking to see how can we make sure that government is making decisions with an eye on you all. 

I just wanted to ask you, I know you are not going anywhere because you love this community, but back home in Maine recently 

I listened to three different towns in western Maine talk about how 

they are all competing for a manufacturing firm that is looking to 

move into western Maine, and the source of competition, the final 

decision is where can they get the fastest Internet. A couple of 

them are trying to compete for grants to get that last mile because 

there is some backbone pretty close to where they are but it is not 

quite coming into their town. These are the types of towns that 

have lost a lot of manufacturing through the years, so they are desperate to get something back. 

I am just curious, you seem to talk a little bit—you are in the 

weeds compared to me. You talked about 10 up, 10 down, 25 and 

10. I don’t know what all this stuff means, to be honest with you, 

but I listen to people like yourself. If you were starting over again, 

what is the Internet speed that you would be looking for if you 

were talking to someone about buying some property to build a 

business? 

Mr. CRESCENZO. If we were to look at the broad scope of starting over or building a building, we wouldn’t do it with this Internet. It would be the kiss of death for our business model. You really use a lot more bandwidth as you grow. So having the bandwidth 

available is like having the land available, having the construction 

company available to build your building, or somebody to do concrete. It is very important, and it is amazing in this day and age 

that it has become so important. But it has a huge positive impact 

on our business when things work correctly; and when they don’t, 

we are spending an enormous amount of resources trying to get 

them to work correctly. 

So I would look at that and say where we are at today, we would 

not start fresh here. 

Chairman GOLDEN. So, I am curious. Some people are happy 

with where their business stands, and it sounds like you have been 

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very successful, and you have the dream job that you have created 

here. But if you had access to faster Internet, could you and would 

you grow and create more jobs in this community? 

Mr. CRESCENZO. That has been my goal, to grow in this community and create jobs. So we are working with the county to allow 

light manufacturing. Where we are at, to be able to expand and be 

able to move into the greater industrial parks—and I am a big, 

firm believer in this county. We have a lot of great talent pool to 

choose from, and we want to support the local businesses here. We 

are here, our heart is here, my family is here. We want to stay 

here. 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much. 

I wrote a little note here, Mr. Artz and Mr. Johnson, while you 

were giving us your opening statements: Ask them if there is a 

workforce shortage in this district. I figured I knew the answer, but 

he wrote ‘‘yes’’ with two exclamation points, and I am not surprised 

at all. 

I am just curious. Our problem in Maine, Mr. Artz, often is that 

as we try to address our workforce shortage, and it is often things 

like lack of broadband that leads a lot of our graduates and young 

people—they go away for college, and when they start thinking 

about going back, it is lack of these types of things when they start 

thinking, oh, maybe I will settle in southern Maine instead of 

northern Maine, or not even come back to the state at all. 

But often we hear a lot of people talk about, well, you know, I 

found that dream opportunity to come back home to Maine, or 

someone looking to take a job in Maine, but they had a spouse who 

also needs an opportunity to work, and the Internet figures in a big 

way in a lot of cases to the ability to work from home, work remotely, maybe even keep the job they have so that they can move 

the family and take that other opportunity for their husband or 

wife. 

I just thought I would give you an opportunity to maybe tell us 

if you have heard those stories as a realtor and what types of 

missed opportunities. I don’t know if you have any specifics, but we 

would love to hear them. 

Mr. ARTZ. Yes, I do. You know, it is true. Last fall, the City of 

North Branch was working with the Minnesota design team on 

some reconfiguring of North Branch and what opportunities, because it faces those challenges you are talking about. 

And it was interesting because we went to the school and we 

asked the kids questions about the future, because one of the questions that was in everyone’s mind was what would keep you here. 

So one day my 25-year-old daughter and her friends were hanging 

around and I said, you know, girls, what would keep you? What 

would keep you in North Branch versus moving to the Twin Cities 

or somewhere else? And it was interesting because a lot of times 

you think you might know the answer, and when you ask a kid you 

get the real answer. 

And she said, you know, dad, affordable housing, affordable 

housing and opportunity, and that is not there without the Internet. They are not going to go anywhere where there isn’t affordable 

housing. And like you said, the spouse that can’t have an opporSBD026 with DISTILLER

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tunity in a rural area, it is just a recipe for not being successful 

and a disaster, and it does directly affect the real estate business. 

The blessing of our industry is I do hear a lot of things. You hear 

the real story. So I do think the communities having good Internet, 

like everyone is saying, it pulls that community closer. It makes affordable housing more. It makes that community more vibrant, it 

makes it more desirable because they can buy way more of a house. 

They become part of the community, which enriches the school. It 

is a spiral, a domino effect, and a domino effect back. 

So, yes, I do hear that a lot, and those are the number-one concerns. But like I said, Internet access, affordable housing, they kind 

of go hand in hand. So I hope that answers your question. 

Mr. STAUBER. Thank you, Chairman Golden. 

Mr. Johnson, one of my questions for you is what are some of the 

biggest differences that you are seeing in schools that are connected versus schools that aren’t? 

And before you answer that, I would just say that I have four 

kids. They are using the Internet in the City of Hermantown, 

where I live. The location where I live, we have high-speed access, 

and they can do their homework. Just down the road, they don’t, 

and that is frustrating for those parents. 

So I will ask you as folks that work with the schools—what is 

your thought on the question, connected versus not? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure. Thank you, Representative Stauber. Excellent question. 

I think when I talked about being in the digital age and that 

ability to take that device home, most schools in Minnesota are 

doing what we call one-to-one initiatives, right? Where they give a 

device, a Chromebook, a tablet, in some cases it is a laptop, to students, and then they design their learning around that. That becomes their hub for learning, that device, right? And they use technology to access assignments. They use technology to access—in 

some cases, what you will see in the places where they can truly 

extend that to the home, there are terms like—you will hear 

‘‘flipped learning.’’ That is a term you will hear, and that is a situation where they will change the way classroom instruction is done 

where an instructor will do a lesson, a lecture, examples and things 

like that, via video, right? Students will take that home, consume 

that at home, and allow for the classroom time to be group learning 

rather than having them have to sit and listen to a lecture and see 

examples for half an hour, and then have a little bit of time to do 

their homework, and then they go home where they can’t get questions answered. 

In an environment where digital learning is really in place, an 

instructor can provide sort of that initial learning at home where 

they can consume it, and then they can come back to the classroom 

and actually interact with the instructor on a more personal basis, 

get their questions answered and so on. 

So I think that is a big difference in what you will see. Those 

districts that have good-quality access at home, they are able to leverage all of that. Those who don’t, you have that 10, 20, 30 percent or more of students where you have to give them alternate instruction, and it is less effective for them, and you have minimized 

what you can do with the whole group because you are sort of dealSBD026 with DISTILLER

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ing with the lowest common denominator in a sense. Okay, these 

students who didn’t have access, we have to help them, we have 

to bring them along, less time to spend on those who had access. 

And if I can, for a moment—— 

Mr. STAUBER. Go ahead. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Chair Golden, you asked the question about 

bandwidth and what is necessary. One thing I will point out is the 

FCC defines 25 meg down and 3 meg up. I think it is that ‘‘up’’ 

part that is problematic, especially for businesses, for healthcare. 

That piece is important if you are going to do healthcare monitoring. It is important if you are going to be able to upload your 

videos and your files and so on. So I will just add that piece to your 

question about that. 

Sorry, Representative Stauber. 

Mr. STAUBER. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. 

Mr. Carlson, you talked about the healthcare. So I was on the 

County Board of Commissioners and the Community Health Board, 

and we talked about the telehealth, how important it is. For instance, you talked about the mental health initiative going across 

the country. In northern Minnesota, if you don’t have the ability 

to connect, that means that a law enforcement officer who brought 

the individual in who was a danger to themselves or others would 

have to travel all the way to downtown Duluth, which takes him 

or her out of their district, when they could get that high-speed 

connectivity in their location and the doctor can interact over 

Skype or over the monitor, which is going to save literally hundreds or even thousands of dollars even for one trip. So I was very 

well aware of that. 

So when you talk about connectivity for the seniors, you talk 

about mental health. Can you tell us how important it is for those 

seniors that you are taking care of, living in their home, how important it is to connect to their children, their grandchildren, what 

that does for their mental health? 

Mr. CARLSON. Yes. Thank you. It goes back to an earlier point 

that I made where Kaiser Health had indicated in their data that 

it is really just the 10 percent of healthcare that is driven by our 

health system, and it is the rest of it that involves the quality of 

life. So that kind of connectivity, a soft kind of a thing, being able 

to connect with family, grandchildren and so forth, it improves 

one’s well-being, their sense of purpose, improves the quality of life, 

keeps them more engaged, and the effects from that is really the 

bulk of what really produces good health. 

Mr. STAUBER. And I think that is important to note. We are not 

talking a lot about that part of the quality of life. I just want to 

share with you and the audience members that when my wife was 

deployed, having the ability for my kids to see mom over Skype 

was huge, and you talk about the mental health, being able to see 

mom, and this goes across the country. So if we hadn’t had that 

opportunity, it would have been a much more—it was tougher for 

me, but I am talking when you get back to the seniors, I think it 

is so important that they connect. When they are able to see their 

grandkids or siblings or relatives over the Skype or being able to 

connect with them right away, I think that is so important. That 

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is part of the healthcare that we don’t see because that is the quality of life that is important. 

Mr. CARLSON. Representative Stauber? 

Mr. STAUBER. Go ahead. 

Mr. CARLSON. Just an additional comment to that. In my experience, what I have seen with older adults, they shy away from 

anything—you know, the technology. But it is that one thing, the 

idea of connecting with family, that drives them to learn how to 

use the Internet. 

Mr. STAUBER. My parents are in their mid-80s and just starting to send videos to the grandkids now, so they can do it, for sure. 

Mr. Crescenzo, one question for you. You made a statement that 

you would not locate here if you had it to do over again because 

of the lack of Internet and the quality of the high speed; is that 

correct? 

Mr. CRESCENZO. I feel like it is important to note that at this 

stage in this business, it is required. When we initially located 

here, it was to raise kids, it was to do what is affordable. Now we 

are in a different, bigger ball game, so we need this bandwidth to 

really flourish with this business. And if we were to do it over 

again, where we are at now, we couldn’t do it here. 

Mr. STAUBER. And those of us who represent rural Minnesota, 

rural America, that hits right to the—that hurts to hear you say 

that, but that is the truth. And that is exactly why we are here, 

to make sure that the people that want the quality of life outside 

in rural Minnesota, rural America, can have that opportunity. 

Mr. Artz, you talked about in your real estate business—and this 

will be my last question. You talked about in your real estate business the ability to—that first question, is it connected to the Internet or not. A house that is worth $250,000 connected to the Internet or one that is not, how quick of a sale is it to connect? Like 

right now? 

Mr. ARTZ. Yes, it is night and day, and it is really not a matter 

of value. It is a matter of they don’t want the house if they can’t 

connect, because people don’t want to go through what he does. I 

mean, they don’t want to deal with that. They see that as not an 

option for the kids anymore, and themselves. So, yes, absolutely. 

Two equal houses, the value is night and day difference, and it 

doesn’t mean if it is $10,000 less they will buy it, because they 

won’t. It is amazing that that has become so prevalent, because 

when some of us older people grew up, we had books and we never 

had any of that stuff. I used to carry coins in my car to go to the 

pay phone, where today it is just a reality of life now. 

Mr. STAUBER. Was the pay phone a dime or a quarter? 

Mr. ARTZ. Well, a dime. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. STAUBER. Me, too. 

Mr. ARTZ. But a little later the quarters, yes, so you always carried those. 

I mean, I could never imagine the technology that we have today, 

but this is electricity back in the day that our parents or grandparents were—— 

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Mr. STAUBER. I can tell you every realtor that I talked to would 

answer that with the same passion you just had. It is the Internet 

that makes the difference, so I appreciate your comments. 

Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, sir. 

With that, we will recognize Congresswoman Craig. 

Mrs. CRAIG. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. 

My name is Angie Craig. I represent Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District. That is essentially southeastern Minnesota. About 

half of my district geographically is actually greater Minnesota. So 

having grown up in rural Minnesota, or having grown up in rural 

America, it is so critical that we start to make these investments, 

and I feel really, really lucky to serve both on the House Committee on Small Business as well as the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee with Congressman Pete Stauber. He and I 

have been working together on some things we care deeply about, 

and it is great to be in your congressional district. 

I know a little bit about your district, Mr. Artz. As you were saying, you were talking about just two or three miles out of North 

Branch. We have a cabin about eight miles out of North Branch, 

and I can’t tell you how many times we have had to pack up the 

cabin early so the boys could get back to Eagan and turn their 

homework in or get their homework done. So that particularly resonated with me. 

My background is I worked in two healthcare manufacturing 

companies before I represented Minnesota 2, and I now own a little 

part of a small business just outside of my district. So this is just 

a critical conversation that we are having, and I know Pete and I 

have said that any infrastructure package we do has got to 

prioritize investment in high-speed Internet in rural America because at the end of the day, every American deserves the freedom 

to have an opportunity to earn a good life where you want to live, 

and many of these communities are dying because we haven’t made 

that investment. 

So thank you for being here, and everything I have heard here 

is exactly what you would hear if you were down in southeastern 

Minnesota in my congressional district. 

Mr. Carlson and Mr. Johnson, I spent, again, over 20 years working in healthcare, and I want to apologize first because when I 

leave, when I am done, I have to go back to my district to talk 

about healthcare on a panel right after this. But you talked about 

mental health in rural areas, and you also talked about, which I 

love, moving away from this fee-for-service pay system, and how 

being able to move to an outcomes-based system depends on the 

ability to have telemedicine in rural areas. 

So, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Carlson, talk a little bit more about 

each of those topics. 

Mr. CARLSON. When I hear the news locally and nationally, the 

issue of addiction, the opioid crisis and what not, when I speak 

with law enforcement people and the challenges that they face, 

whether it is traffic issues or intervention in family issues, whatever the case might be, the need to intervene in a meaningful way 

is really critical. But many people who are isolated out in the community, they might go in for treatment, and once they finish treatSBD026 with DISTILLER

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ment they are back into that home environment where maybe it is 

a toxic environment, or whatever the case might be. 

I certainly am not an expert on that end, but I do know that the 

ability to maintain some connection—and I know there is technology that can help with that. There are programs. There are 

ways of checking in and so forth. But in helping people move further away from their addiction or their mental health issue, that 

period of time is critical. If it is just simply a discharge from a 

treatment program and then they are back home or back to wherever their living situation is and there is not the ability to have a 

robust follow-up kind of a program, the likelihood of a repeat of 

that kind of behavior is significant, much higher. 

Mrs. CRAIG. Thank you. I know in my district, sometimes you 

have to drive 30 or 40 miles just to get to the closest follow-up or 

preventive health, and the ability to do that via telemedicine would 

just be critical. 

Mr. Johnson? 

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure. Thank you, Representative Craig. In the 

schools we have mental health issues with our students as well, 

and of course we lose many students in the United States to suicide and other things related to mental health, so it is a huge 

issue. 

There are a number of things involving telehealth within the 

mental health community that would help. Some of our counselors 

and mental health professionals in the schools would or could, because again sometimes you have to share them, small rural districts, you have to share these staff among districts, and then that 

involves travel time for them to get back and forth, and technology 

can play a role in that, and high-speed Internet in terms of having 

a telehealth meeting with those students in a different school 

building if you are a shared staff person. I think there is a lot of 

opportunity for that, and there is opportunity to extend that further to the home if at home they have that same access. So I think 

that is an important thing. 

I will go back also to what I said about upload speeds. If you are 

going to have that kind of connection with somebody at home, you 

need the upload speed to make that happen, or if you are going to 

have monitoring, or if you are going to provide services, whether 

that is mental health or other healthcare services to people at 

home, you have to have that other side of it. Download is great; 

upload is what you really need for me to be seen on the other end. 

Mrs. CRAIG. Absolutely. What else would, from a small business 

perspective, help you if we were to invest in around that? I mean, 

we are talking about transportation and infrastructure as well. Is 

it just high-speed Internet? Is it highways, roads, bridges? Any 

thoughts there? 

Mr. CRESCENZO. That is a tough one. I really have to consider 

the brevity of the entire roads, bridges. We are in a rural area, so 

we are between major lanes of transport, between the Twin Cities 

and Hudson and access to the great state of Wisconsin. So we look 

at what would benefit our business. The only thing holding us back 

here is a go-for-it. We don’t need much more than an okay from the 

county and high-speed Internet, but we may be an exception. 

Mrs. CRAIG. Thank you. 

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Thank you, Mr. Crescenzo, and thank you for sharing your beautiful family with us here today. 

Mr. CRESCENZO. Thank you very much. 

Mrs. CRAIG. Thank you. 

I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. ARTZ. Can I make one last comment on what you said? With 

the Internet, what I wonder is what is being missed. When we provide that Internet to everyone, I think it is going to unleash the 

entrepreneurial creative spirit of America that must be massive untapped talent out there. 

Mr. STAUBER. I call that unleashing the economic engine of 

Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District. 

Chairman GOLDEN. Congressman Hagedorn? 

Mr. HAGEDORN. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be here. I appreciate you holding this hearing. It is good to 

see Congresswoman Craig, our colleague from Minnesota; and last 

but certainly not least, my good friend Pete Stauber. Mr. Ranking 

Member, thank you for suggesting this venue. It is an honor to 

serve with all of you in Congress and be working on the Small 

Business Committee to try to move things along here in rural Minnesota. 

I grew up on a grain and livestock farm down in Truman, Minnesota. Actually, the 1st District that I represent is most of southern Minnesota, all the way from South Dakota to Wisconsin, and 

then Iowa up about 80 miles. The little town that I grew up in used 

to be a hopping place—three grocery stores, seven gas stations, and 

on it goes. It is still about 1,000 people, but there is not much of 

that going on. 

Times have changed, and rural America has been squeezed for 

many decades now, and we have been under pressure, especially 

hearing about the last six or seven years, low commodity prices in 

agriculture, high input costs, and you need fewer and fewer people 

with all our mechanization and technology to work the land. Where 

I come from, if agriculture suffers, so does our district. 

But we also have other interests, small business interests that 

are very important, medical interests. We have awesome rural hospitals in southern Minnesota, and then there is that clinic you may 

have heard of, the Mayo Clinic, which is in our district. 

And then up here you have interests like mining. I appreciate 

what the Ranking Member has been doing, and his predecessor for 

that matter, to bring mining back, have those good-paying jobs, 

and to create opportunities in rural Minnesota. Pete, you have my 

support on that, whatever you need to move that forward. 

But let’s be honest, if we don’t have people living in these areas, 

it doesn’t really matter what industries we have, we are still going 

to suffer. And some of that is quality of life, as you have talked 

about, to make sure that we can attract people, keep people, want 

people to be in our rural communities. A lot of that is just infrastructure. Do we have good roads, good bridges? Do we have sewer 

and water? 

A long time ago in the rural areas, they went in with the RA and 

made sure we had electricity, and this case is no different. This is 

an infrastructure issue, it is a quality of life issue, and if we don’t 

have it, we are going to suffer. It is going to be very difficult for 

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our folks to keep those communities sustained and vibrant, which 

is one of my priorities. 

I will ask Mr. Carlson, when we talked a little bit about telemedicine, I think that is an emerging area. The Department of Agriculture has some sort of standard, the 10 megabits per second 

versus 1, and you are saying you have to have at least 3 in order 

to do just face-to-face conversations. Is that true? 

Mr. CARLSON. Well, as it relates to technical questions, I am 

not the person you want to ask that question. Maybe Mr. Johnson 

can—— 

Mr. HAGEDORN. Well, is there anyone here who can—the 

standard that Agriculture has I don’t think is going to be conducive. Bill Eckles, who heads up Bevcomm in my home town, a telecommunications company, said 25 and 3, which is what you talked 

about, seems to make more sense. That is what we should be building towards and spending our money towards. Is that—— 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thanks, Representative Hagedorn, for the question. The previous—like some of the CAF programs, the Connect 

America Fund programs, where they had a 10 megabit down, 1 

megabit up, that 1 doesn’t do you much, especially if you are trying 

to do—well, it won’t do a video conversation very well at all. So 

that productivity piece of the upload speed, 1 is pretty inadequate. 

Twenty-five/3 is what the FCC has more defined as broadband, 

and that is better. I would argue that you need 5 to 10 up when 

you get into the business world. I would think you would have to 

have that. Again, that is my opinion, right? I think you have to 

have that kind of speed, or better. And if you are dealing with very 

large files, CAD files, things like that, then upload speed even has 

to go a little bit more. 

Mr. HAGEDORN. Okay. I bring this up to take a little bit of a 

sidestep issue, and that is in the area of telemedicine. I am somebody who supports the concept, for instance, that our veterans 

should be able to choose their own doctors and hospitals, that our 

veterans should have the choice of the VA system, if that works, 

but if they fall through the cracks, let them go find their own doctors and hospitals. 

But particularly in the area of mental health, when we have so 

many veterans, unfortunately, committing suicide, we have backlogs at the VA, getting mental health services, it seems like this 

telemedicine concept would really be helpful there, especially if 

they could see somebody face to face, talk to a mental health provider, and do that almost instantaneously where the government 

would back that up. A lot of our veterans live in rural areas, and 

they don’t have access to these types of things now. 

So don’t you think that would be beneficial, the concept? I am not 

going to have you support my policy, but the concept of that. 

Mr. CARLSON. I live in the City of Cambridge. I live a blockand-a-half from the hospital. If I need to make an appointment— 

if I have any issue that comes up, I need to make an appointment. 

So I call the medical center, I make an appointment. That way, 

now I can do it online. But I need to go physically to that location 

only a block-and-a-half away, when oftentimes through technology 

I could get some kind of response, whether it is through video conferencing or whatever the case might be. 

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We have 900 personnel employed at our local medical center. But 

if you need service, you have to go there. The further you are out 

into the rural parts of the county, the further you have to travel, 

and the more work it takes to get there. So whether you are a veteran or anybody else that needs any services, you go to that location. 

I think that through telehealth, the opportunity is there to really 

turn that over. You talked about how it has flipped in education, 

and I think this is the same kind of thing. We need to flip that paradigm so that services are made available to people where they are 

at, versus having to come to this place, which honestly is not open 

24 hours a day other than maybe the emergency room, and that 

is going to be more costly. So oftentimes I think there is opportunity to save a lot of dollars, too. 

Mr. HAGEDORN. In this case you might have access 24 hours 

a day. You could have people sitting on the other side of a computer or phone or whatever to do these things. 

I would just like to thank the witnesses for your testimony, everyone for being here, for holding the hearing. I see good friends 

like Senator Koran here, and I think we from Minnesota are prepared to work with our governor, our state legislature, in order to 

help this in any way possible. 

My parting statement is that rural America has been overlooked 

for far too long, and we are working real hard to turn that around, 

and I am pleased to work with my colleagues on a bipartisan basis 

to make that happen. Thank you very much. 

Chairman GOLDEN. I want to thank you all once again. I think 

this has been a pretty productive conversation overall. We take a 

lot of notes, and really I think a big part of the job is getting out 

into your communities and listening, bringing the feedback back 

home, back down to Washington I should say. 

In case you can’t tell, I am a little bit obsessed with this idea of 

the FCC mapping of this issue and how it really doesn’t get it. It 

drives me insane. Even when we talk about 25 down, 3 up, you 

have this drilled into my head now, what I hear a lot of people talk 

about, and I am sure that this is the case in this community as 

well, is yeah, sure, we have that, we have 25 down, 3 up, if you 

want to wait until 11:00 p.m. at night or something along those 

lines, right? But then once everyone in the community figures that 

out, all of a sudden that is a problem too. 

That is just not good for business right there. You don’t want to 

have to be coming into the shop at 11:00 p.m. at night. You need 

it when you need it. 

A big part of you all to understand, I think these days members 

of Congress are always encouraged to try and do the thing that 

gets the headlines, and that is usually introducing legislation, passing bills, getting press. But a good boss of mine, Senator Susan 

Collins from Maine, who I worked for years ago, taught me that a 

big part of the job is oversight. It is not as attractive and exciting, 

but that is where the real work gets done. If you all have ever seen 

that picture of an iceberg, just the tip of it, and then underneath 

it is just this massive thing, I think that is really what the job is. 

So I know that we are all going to—I think actually you may 

have signed a letter as well, sir, and Angie Craig, the Small BusiSBD026 with DISTILLER

25 

ness Committee to the FCC to keep pushing them to get more accurate mapping. It is probably unrealistic to expect that bureaucracy 

to be able to get into every community to do it themselves, so 

maybe there is some solution at the local level where we do the 

mapping and pass it on to them. But it has a big impact, I think, 

on our ability to get broadband out into rural communities. 

But just very quickly in closing I would say I think we have come 

upon a time where we see the current trend is people flowing into 

more urban areas, and every now and then I think, whether it is 

electricity or now broadband, there is a technology gap that develops that will push that kind of a trend. But if all things were 

equal, rural America offers a better standard of living in the opinion of a lot of folks, and when we equalize things then it will correct itself and all of a sudden we will see people flowing or wanting 

to flow back out into rural areas, and I suppose the question is do 

we want to? Just kidding. We always welcome new people. 

So thank you for welcoming me here to your community for this 

hearing. If you want to have a closing statement, we are doing it 

a little different. Normally we would just say, all right, we are 

done, and we will submit closing statements for the record. But I 

am in your community, and if you want to wrap it up, then I will 

leave it to you, sir. 

Mr. STAUBER. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Before you gavel us down, 

I would like to make a closing statement. 

To the witnesses, thank you for being here and sharing your expertise. It helps us make decisions. For me, making sure, as Congressman Hagedorn talked about, making sure that rural America 

matters. You talk about the rural schools, they matter. Your businesses matter. 

I have been pushing not only the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee but the Small Business Committee to make sure 

that living in rural America has a great upside. You talk about the 

standard of living, we need to make sure that those little footsteps 

that you heard a couple of minutes ago, those children with sandals, that if they want to stay right here in this community, they 

can stay here and live, work, play, recreate, raise a family in rural 

America, rural Minnesota. 

So this whole conversation we are having today is extremely important, that we can bring it back to the other committee members. 

I will say this, that the elephant in the room is, of course, the 

money, right? But I want to end with this: At some point in this 

nation’s history, our government decided that everybody would receive United States mail. At some point, every mailbox mattered. 

Think about that. Think about that for a minute. 

We have to make the investment. We have to make the investment, and is it going to be to the price point that we can attain? 

The answer is yes. When we put our minds together in the Federal 

Government and local, make it local, we can do a lot of great 

things. As Senator Koran told me—we spoke about it before the 

meeting—we can work to make this investment. I want the states 

and the local communities to have the input. I don’t want the input 

and the forcing from Washington. I want to make sure that we in 

the Small Business Committee and the Subcommittee work to invest, put forth that money, and the experts in the field can deploy 

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it. The experts in the legislative process in St. Paul can make the 

difference. 

With that, thank you again to the witnesses. Thank you to the 

audience members. We so much appreciate you being here. Congressman Hagedorn, thanks for your time. Chairman Golden, I 

really appreciate you coming to the great state of Minnesota, and 

I yield back. 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you very much. 

And with that, I would ask unanimous consent that members 

have 5 legislative days to submit statements and supporting materials for the record. 

Without objection, so ordered. 

There being no further business to come before the Committee, 

we are adjourned. 

Thank you very much. 

VOICE. Can I just make a statement? 

Chairman GOLDEN. Sure, why not? 

VOICE. [Inaudible.] 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you. Well said. 

[Applause.] 

Chairman GOLDEN. Thank you, everyone. I appreciate your attendance. 

[Whereupon, at 11:31 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

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Adam Artz Outline 

Effects on Family; Daughters in School in North Branch 

Can't upload easily 

Slow speeds that drops info 

Cuts off from net 

Just makes process hard and frustrating and a source of stress 

Impacts business; Owner of Real Estate Brokerage, offices in Blaine & North Branch 

In business over 20 years 

First question used to be Schools now it's "What type of Internet is available ?" 

Can't upload Pies to the MLS from my home office that's within city limits 

The Majority of all Paperwork is sent, signed and stored electronically and that's next to 

impossible with current internet at my home. 

Almost always have to go into office to do anything more than a very basic service. 

If 2 identical homes available which would you choose. Makes communities with better internet 

more desirable/valuable. 

Summery. 

Good internet is no longer a luxury 

Top notch internet is a foundation of future growth 

Mars 
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Mr. Marc Johnson 

Executive Director 

East Central Minnesota Educational Cable Cooperative (ECMECC) 

Braham, MN 

May 30, 2019 

Chair Golden, Rep. Stauber, members, staff, guests: 

Small businesses are the lifeblood of communities and rural areas in East Central MN, 

throughout the state and around the nation. Agriculture, tourism, hospitality, manufacturing, 

healthcare, retail and other sectors rely on the Internet to communicate with suppliers and 

customers, to provide their services and to stay viable. These businesses also need an 

educated workforce willing to live and raise families in rural areas. 

Without access to affordable high speed Internet, businesses cannot thrive, families are less 

likely to locate in the area and it is difficult to provide a fair and equitable education. Those of us 

who commit to life in a rural community are forced to get by and make due with what we have. 

Northland Automation and Engineering is an engineering and manufacturing company located 

in rural Kanabec County just a few miles from Mora, MN. The business is located on the farm of 

the company owner. If he or one of his employees wants to utilize simple video conferencing to 

talk with a client about custom parts and show them examples, they often must make a 30 

minute round-trip into town to utilize an available location with high speed access capable of 

providing a stable video connection. He gets by, but comments about the limitations his 

company has for expansion and taking on additional clients when he is hampered by poor 

broadband access. 

There are many stories available similar to this one and real estate agents in the area can verify 

that people will decide not to relocate to areas with poor broadband service. If we want a 

diverse workforce, strong communities and ample opportunities for everyone to reach their 

potential, we must move beyond just getting by. 

How does education fit into this scenario? We live in a digital world and education is no 

different. The Internet is routinely used for research, collaboration, communication and general 

learning. We also know that learning does not take place only within the walls of a school 

building. 

In education, we cannot just "get by." It is not OK for use to leave 20% or more of our students 

without the same learning opportunities as the other 80%. In the world of digital learning, that is 

exactly what is happening. In referencing one of the maps included in the packet, according to 

statistics from the M N Office of Broadband Development, 8 of the 12 school districts in the 

Region 7E economic development area are below 80% for percentage of households served by 

broadband speeds that fit the FCC definition of broadband and two are below 50% served. 

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Essentially, in these areas, we are leaving 20% to 50% of our residents behind. Many of which 

have children, some of whom are trying to run a farm or a small business from home and others 

who may be accessing online courses or completing assignments from higher education 

institutions. The technical and community colleges in our region have high numbers of working 

adult students who are not able to be on campus to complete assignments and/or who need to 

access online course content. These students are vital to development of our local workforce. 

Most of the districts in our region have placed mobile devices in the hands of their students 

intended to be used both in class and at home and they are often cited as one of the most 

impactful technology related tools for teaching and learning. For example, 

Troy Anderson, Principal at Pine City HS says, "Without a doubt, chromebooks have been the 

most impactful for our district. They have started to replace textbooks and are used for 

communication between students and staff." 

Dr. Ray Queener, Superintendent for Cambridge-Isanti school adds - "As curriculum continues 

to migrate to digital and as more and more resources are available digitally, our chromebook 1:1 

initiative has greatly impacted teaching and learning in our district." 

Minnesota has a grassroots project called the Minnesota Partnership for Collaborative 

Curriculum. I'm proud to say that the schools in ECMECC were pioneering members of this 

collaborative that has grown to involve over 225 school districts. The goal of this project is to 

create a comprehensive collection of digital open education resources in the four core subject 

areas for grades 3-12. These resources are created by educators and centered around 

Minnesota's content standards and made available to Minnesota schools at no cost. They are 

designed to be used with the mobile devices that students are using and have the potential to 

replace the use of expensive textbooks and purchased content. 

However, in our region, expensive and slow broadband hampers our ability to fully utilize these 

resources that our teachers helped create. 

Dean Kapsner, Superintendent of Isle schools comments on this saying, "The lack of reliable 

Internet access affects how we can deliver curriculum and assignments outside the school day 

and has stalled our efforts to create a viable e-learning plan." 

Steve Bistrup, Technology Coordinator in Milaca agrees, writing, "The lack of rural broadband 

has played a significant role in limiting our ability to fully transition to digital learning." 

As with small businesses trying to thrive in this environment, schools find ways to make due. 

Long route busses in some of our districts are equipped with onboard wifi. Schools have 

purchased mobile hotspots to provide to students without adequate home access. But these 

solutions only work in areas where there is a reliable cellular connection, which cannot be 

assumed in many rural parts of our area. Other accommodations include keeping areas of the 

school open longer, providing printed or other offline materials, extending deadlines to turn in 

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homework and placing students in study halls rather than other classes. All of these 

accommodations result in some students not receiving the same, or in some cases even similar 

educational opportunities. 

The Minnesota legislature passed a law in 2017 that allowed schools to usee-learning days in 

lieu of weather related school closings. To count as an instructional day, students need to be 

able to access assignments and resources online and teachers need to be available online to 

answer questions. This winter, some Minnesota districts utilized more than five of these days. In 

our region, no schools were able to take advantage of this opportunity because they could not 

count on all students or staff having adequate Internet access. 

Superintendent Robert Prater of Hinckley-Finlayson schools indicated that- "We do not use 

e-learning days because broadband is not reliable enough or widespread enough for us to use 

e-learn ing." 

Amanda Thompson, Technology Integration Specialist at East Central schools agrees saying, "I 

have concerns about both students and staff being able to access the Internet from home to 

fully engage in an e-learning day." 

Our students and families are being left behind in the digital age. Craig Schultz, Superintendent 

of schools in Mora asks, "Is it truly a free and appropriate education when there are significant 

broadband access issues between families just miles apart in a district let alone between 

districts around the state?" We need to solve this issue or families will move away from rural 

areas with poor access and inequitable educational opportunities. There will be fewer people to 

fill jobs in the small businesses that have tried to get by and our rural communities and way of 

life will wither away. Like rural electrification and telephone did for rural areas in their times, we 

need rural broadband to make rural living viable and a choice that people want to seek out 

rather than flee. 

Supplemental Information 

The two attached maps are provided by the Minnesota Office of Broadband Development and 

the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. The Region 7E 

economic development region includes the counties of Mille Lacs, Kanabec, Pine, Isanti and 

Chisago which you will see in the center, right portion of the maps. These counties remain as 

some of the most underserved regions in the State of Minnesota with respect to broadband 

service that meets the FCC definition of broadband. (speeds of 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps 

upload) 

The first map shows the percentage of households served by wireline broadband service that 

meets FCC definitions by county and the second map overlays Minnesota school district 

boundaries and breaks down the number of households served according to school district. 

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2019 Broadband Availability in 

Percentage of Households Served by Wireline 

Broadband Service by County 

At least 25 Mbps Download/3 Mbps Upload Speeds 

Statewide Availability: 92.70%, Rural: 83.71% 

<50% 

50-60% 

60.01-70% 

70.01-80% 

80.01-90% 

90.01-100% 

80 

© Copyngt>t 2019, State of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 
32 

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2019 Broadband Availability in the State of Minnesota 

Percentage of Households Served by Wireline 

Broadband Service by School District 

At Least 25 Mbps Download/3 Mbps Upload Speeds 

Statewide Availability: 92.70%, Rural: 83.71% 

<50% 

50-60% 

60.01-70% 

70.01-80% 

80.01-90% 

90.01-100% 

©Copyright 2019 Stat-e ofM1nnesota, St. PauL MN 
33 

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Statement of Greg Carlson 

Isanti County Broadband Task Force 

for 

Congressman Pete Stauber 

ond 

Congressman Jared Golden 

Small Business and Their Limitations without 

Reliable Access to Rural Broadband 

May 30,2019 

On behalf of the Isanti County Broadband Task Force, Cambridge Medical Center, Presbyterian Homes & 

Services, other health care organizations, and our clinician partners including ___ physicians, __ 

nurses and other caregivers, we appreciate the opportunity to provide comments on the benefits of 

broadband, especially increasing access in rural areas. 

BACKGROUND 

The lack of adequate broadband has become a crisis in rural areas. Routine activities of both residents 

and business now often require Internet access. Work from home and business from home activities are 

increasing as are technology-based health care making business class broadband availability in rural 

neighborhoods an economic development and safety issue. 

The Minnesota Broadband Task Force (charged with developing, implementing and promoting state 

policy, planning and initiatives to achieve state broadband needs and goals) established minimum speed 

standards. By 2022, the minimum download speed in the state should be 25Mbps (down)/3Mbps (up) 

and by 2026, all Minnesota homes and businesses should have access to at least one provider of 

lOOM pbs (down)/20Mbps (up) service. The upload speed is typically the measure of greatest interest 

to health care, because they are frequently involved in uploading large files. An upload speed of 5 

Mbps is considered the minimum for effective health care communication. 

In response to these and other concerns, the Isanti County Economic Development Authority (EDA) 

established a Broadband Task Force to learn more about broadband access in Isanti County and identify 

possible solutions. The first meeting was held in November of 2016. 

Membership varied during the period 2016-2019. Members consistent throughout were: 

Commissioners Greg Anderson and Terry Turnquist, County Administrator Kevin VanHooser, EDA 

consultant Janna King, and Marc Johnson, executive director of the East Central Minnesota Educational 

Cable Cooperative. Others who participated on a regular basis, but not for the entire period 2016-2019 

include: Bill Coleman, with Community Technology Advisors (Blandin Foundation Resource); Greg 

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Carlson, Presbyterian Homes & Services; Gary Shaw, Cambridge Medical Center (AIIina); Jay Manke, 

Mary Lodin and Ryan Hagfors with Genesis Wireless; Dave Williams, owner of Rev Net Data; and Travis 

Martilla, who is responsible for information technology at Isanti County. 

In the spring of 2017 the County issued a Request for Proposals and in April 2017, the County Board 

approved a contract with Design Nine, a broadband planning firm. Their research focused on the quality 

of service throughout the county, including business and industrial parks. In addition, resident and 

business survey's, mapping, and analysis provided a better understand what type of technology would 

best serve the county: 

A wireless system with a series of towers, or 

A "fiber-to-the-premises" system, or 

A system with a combination of fiber-to-the-premises and wireless. 

Though wireless may provide improvement in speed in the short term, it's unlikely to enable the county 

to achieve the broadband speed goal of 100/20 by 2026. In addition, interviews with healthcare 

providers revealed a concern for infrastructure sufficient to support emerging technology, particularly in 

underserved rural areas of the county. Healthcare professionals expect more services to become 

available on-line to reduce costs and improve patient outcomes, including monitoring the health and 

safety of elderly and others recently released from the hospital; providing services to people in their 

homes as long as possible can save money for families and other payers. 

Approximately 40,000 people live in Isanti County, nearly 60% reside outside the city limits of the three 

communities of Braham (1,789), Cambridge (8,803) and Isanti (5,721), and most have less than adequate 

access to broadband services. Lack of access makes it difficult for rural residents to get preventive health 

care services, leaving them susceptible to fragmented, episodic care and poorer health outcomes. 

BROADBAND-ENABLED TELEHEALTH SERVICES IMPROVE HEALTH OUTCOMES FOR UNDERSERVED RURAL AREAS 

Access to reliable and affordable broadband is essential to the delivery of modern heath care. Electronic 

health records, technology-based patient engagement strategies, health information sharing for 

coordinated care, and remote-monitoring technologies all require high-bandwidth broadband 

connections. Such telehealth technologies can help overcome many of the obstacles to health care 

delivery that particularly confront rural communities. Telehealth offers enormous potential to improve 

access to certain services and improve patient outcomes through use of new technologies, such as 

remote patient monitoring (RPM) and access to specialty services, including mental health and 

addiction services. 

Telehealth is much more than virtual health visits; the term also encompasses remote patient 

monitoring connecting patients to vital health care services though videoconferencing, activity and 

daily living monitoring, medication management, electronic consults, wireless communications and 

safety technology. Electronic health records enable efficient exchange of patient and treatment 

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information by allowing providers to access digital copies of patients' information, improving the 

continuity of care and reducing redundancies in treatment. Remote patient monitoring uses 

electronic communication to collect and transmit personal and medical data to remote health care 

providers, allowing providers to monitor a patient's health in real time after the patient has left the 

medical center. 

Many older adults report feeling lonely or isolated, healthcare providers work collaboratively to 

incorporate social connectedness into programs for these patients. If patients are not socially 

connected, they will not age optimally. New and innovative mobile health applications enable 

better patient-provider communications, encourage better patient self-management and health 

literacy, and promote positive changes in health and lifestyle. Telemedicine and mHealth (mobile 

health) are rapidly emerging as cost-effective solutions to overcoming many of the obstacles to 

health care delivery faced in rural communities. 

The proper infrastructure must be in place to allow for these and other technologies to be 

implemented in the home. However, residents in rural areas often do not have the financial means 

to have broadband service, which these technologies rely on. 

CAMBRIDGE MEDICAL CENTER and the PROVIDER COMMUNITY 

Models of care that help the transition from the hospital to the home are important, and the key team 

member might be a healthcare professional other than a doctor. Technologies are key enablers of 

strategic partnerships between long term care settings and the medical center and help to carry out 

integrated and person-centered care and services that support the health and wellness of patients 

across the continuum. With such connectivity, a broad array of services are available to support health 

and wellness, reduce loneliness and isolation, increase quality of life and, ultimately, enhance 

independence among older adults living independently. 

For the Cambridge Medical Center, this involves leveraging technology for the patient facing experience 

and interaction with the provider community. The objective of current planning is to enhance the 

patients online experience by expanding the reach of telehealth and mHealth (mobile health) 

technology with improved access to 

online scheduling, 

video visits~ 

medical messaging with patients, 

Urgent Care and Emergency Department wait times, 

online video education, 

MyAccount/MyChart (Patients online Health Account), 

applications on phones or pc's which all essentially require high speed internet. 

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CONCLUSION 

The health care field is quickly moving from fee-for-service to a value-based delivery system. 

Success in new payment models, such as bundling, accountable care organizations and new 

physician payment models will require flexibility to deploy telehealth, particularly as part of care 

management programs. 

Ensuring communities in rural areas can take full advantage of the benefits of telehealth solutions 

requires access to reliable and affordable broadband connections. Telehealth is changing health 

care delivery. Through videoconferencing, remote monitoring, electronic consultations and wireless 

communications, telehealth expands patient access to care while improving patient outcomes and 

satisfaction. Telehealth offers a wide-range of benefits, such as immediate access to care, less 

expensive and more convenient care options and improved care outcomes. The Isanti County 

Broadband Task Force and area health care providers appreciate the focus on the importance of 

expanding broadband connectivity and grateful for the opportunity to share our rural perspective. 

END OF STATEMENT 

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''Small Businesses and Their Limitations Without Reliable Access to Rural Broadband." 

Testimony of Mr. Matt Crescenzo 

May 30, 2019 

Hello Friends and Neighbors my name is Matthew Crescenzo. I am a 44 year old father of 3 

young girls and a husband to my wife Krista. Krista is a nurse at Gilletc Childrens hospital 

located in St. Paul Minnesota and works in the child brain injury rehab unit. I work in this 

building designing automated machines like our Star Lab CNC plasma machine. I also train folks 

at schools, businesses, garages. I have trained well over 700 times across the USA and have been 

fortunate to train deaf and quadrapalegic customers ... who are some of the sharpest minds you 

will find. The place you are sitting at or standing on was only possible through usc of the 

internet. A unique gift of communication between people. We would be having this great 

meeting near and in an I 00 year old barn ready to collapse ... now wouldnt that be exciting. When 

I suffered a spinal cord injury on the job my world became small. Frustration and desperation 

were my weighing heavily on my heart. I pooled resources and stretched my minds capability 

beyond my expected pesonallimits. With the help of my good friend David Boucher who 

currently works for Toro company and who set up a website tor me, I was able to take my ideas 

and machine products, bringing them to the internet and discover a vast amount of interest in 

these parts that I dreamed and engineered. I was able to take my passions to market. It was the 

internet that allowed all this to exist out of the idea of offering something awesome for a good 

price. I could not have done it without the internet and without my Father Peter Reed Crescenzo 

who challenged and supported me ... sometimes challenged more than supported. But that is often 

a Fathers burden .. .I love and respect my Father. Where we arc sitting today I could not have 

imagined years ago. We have seemingly unlimited potential for growth here. I have sacrificed 

my wage to build this business for years and years. We are ready to take the next steps and I am 

ready to take a pay check. Ha. We fumble through our day using the local internet. It is as 

important now as it was when I started this business. We even have a dedicated line of 10 megs 

up and I 0 megs down which wouldnt get you a hotdog in the twin cities and it runs us $277 a 

month. We deal with dropped calls when using internet to rebooting our modem several times a 

day. I thought I was alone. For years we were rebooting our modem in the house in the shop. It 

wasnt until my friends and neighbors told me they do the same thing. Our business relies on 

customer experience not volume but the network of very happy customers to keep us busy and 

boy are we busy. It is crucial to our success that we can upload training videos, download 

customer files and talk on the phone without interruption. The infrastructure is toast out here. 

The technology has moved beyond our rural areas 20 years ago. I have seen businesses close 

because they cannot have a robust security system tied to the internet or really cannot develop 

without access to high speed internet, businesses moving out of state not only because of local 

ordinances but because of the vast desert of little to no speed internet we have here. Friends and 

neighbors we need real help for our community to prosper. I commend these folks before us for 

shining a bright light on our dimly lit network. Communication between people is what makes 

good communities and binds the heart of mankind. The invention of the internet was brilliant.. .. 

and I believe ... inevitable. However without bolstering our community and supporting ideas like 
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