Rice County

Table of goal data by year

Year	100/20 Mbps	1 Gbps
2025	#62 – 83.95%	#19 – 83.7%
2024	#47 – 85.44%
2023	#45 – 84.16%
2022	#32 – 85.23%
2021	#33 – 85.58%
2020	#31 – 82.95%
2019	#28 – 82.47%
2018	#74 – 32.63%
2017	#45 – 48.85%

Red dots represent unserved locations.

Rice County: Dropped from yellow to red ranking 

Rice County’s broadband coverage seems to be incrementally shrinking, albeit within a margin of error. They should receive some BEAD funding but only for satellite and fixed wireless. They maintain their Red status.

At the time of writing, the MN BEAD final proposal has not been approved, but the current proposal would mean coverage for 2,188 locations in Rice County. More than half will get fiber but the rest will get a satellite or fixed wireless connection, which does not qualify as served in the MN statute.

There is still Line Extension funding yet to be distributed, which helps connect handfuls of  houses just beyond existing infrastructure. (Rice has benefitted from earlier Line Extension awards. So that seems hopeful for them as well.)

Statewide, there have been changes with local and national broadband providers, which also leads to uncertainty.