Broadband initiative would bring high speed internet to countryside

Mosaic Technologies presents at Stanley Area Historical Society

By Joseph Back
Posted 1/29/25

Back in the 1930s, rural electrification and phone lines brought convenience to the countryside. Now a similar initiative seeks to bring broadband, and one company in particular looks to fill the …

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Broadband initiative would bring high speed internet to countryside

Mosaic Technologies presents at Stanley Area Historical Society

Posted

Back in the 1930s, rural electrification and phone lines brought convenience to the countryside. Now a similar initiative seeks to bring broadband, and one company in particular looks to fill the void locally.
Presenting at the Stanley Area Historical Society Wednesday, Jan. 22, Public Relations Manager DeAnna Westphal of Cameron-based Mosaic Technologies laid out the basic idea.
“The PSC was charged by the federal government to get broadband for everyone,” Westphal said of the Wisconsin Public Service Commission. In order to fulfill its task, the PSC has divided the state into BEAD areas known as project units. BEAD stands for Broadband Equity Access and Deployment Program. Companies apply to serve areas in the color coded area, receiving grants funds to do so.
“Project units are predetermined groups of underserved and unserved locations,” Westphal explained. “So they grouped them all together. And then they determined how many within the hexagon are a serviceable broadband location.” A letter of intent was on October 1 of last year for those companies interested in providing service, with three rounds of grants to come, the first with a deadline of Feb. 25. Grants for the second round of grants will be determined by amount awarded in the first round, with the third round being negotiations on providing service for those areas that weren’t bid on previously.
“This will be a pool where they go back to the provider and say ‘can you pick this up as well?’” Westphal said of round 3, with June 30, 2025 the deadline for the PSC to identify and award all areas in need of broadband. Areas are color coded by eligibility for the BEAD program funds, with green meaning served, yellow underserved, and red unserved. The maps are provisional, while the project itself is contingent on federal funding remaining in place.
Mosaic is applying to cover east of the Chippewa River to the Chippewa County line, with Clark County line anticipated as well. All infrastructure must be in by 2030 under the grant agreement.
“So your plan is to provide service to the countryside?” presentation attendee Jason Meyer asked.
“Oh, yes,” Westphal said. With BEAD Project maps at the PSC website and color coding used to identify internet speed in individual project units, areas are color coded according to the percentage of eligible addresses for broadband hookup, some more than others.
“However, if you’re in an area adjacent to the colors and we’re going past your house anyways, we will definitely connect you to Mosaic,” she said. “At no charge. We’re already building it.”
“Are you going to service the city of Stanley?” James Ericksen asked.
“If you are already with services at this time, unfortunately we cannot apply for you, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t extend our line after this is done,” Westphal said. Ericksen made known that Kennedy Avenue in Stanley was an area of poor service.
“I can’t get high speed internet because they wired Stanley with 26 gauge wire instead of 24 gauge wire,” he said. “But yet parts of town have it so they say we have it but we don’t.”
“So that would be a great opportunity to hold an additional public meeting,” Westphal told Ericksen. “Have people sign up for services online. And then what happens is that even though we can’t give you service today, you go into our database and we populate it on to a map and show a high percentage of people in an area that need it, that would be a self-funded area that we would go to first.”
One potential advantage of service from Mosaic Technologies for rural residents as laid out Wednesday was that it doesn’t model grant awarded services on high-density areas, with another being that costumers don’t pay for the drop to their house from the main line.
“Furthermore, as we do mainline construction, you do not pay for your drop,” Westphal said. “So if you have a 500 foot driveway or a two mile driveway, we still will provide the drop to your household free of charge, if you take services.”
With Mosaic currently building a fiber network capable of 10 GB, Westphal described the infrastructure to be put in as “future proof.” Starting at $64.95 for 100 Megabytes per second in upload and download speed, the service using Mosaic Edge routers was considered to be affordable. The price as quoted includes up to three devices, video chat, and quick downloads. Faster internet speeds up to two gigabytes per second are available as well, with the additional possibility of a guest network for homes to quarantine outside devices from the main network. Cybersecurity features are included as well, including remote access for Mosaic if needed to do a fix. An Eau Claire-based company named Protechtors was acquired by Mosaic in July to handle larger security.
Branching off its dig company as M Tech Construction and expanding this from eight to 30 people, Mosaic is well positioned to do the infrastructure building as applied for. With private companies able to bid on service areas stretching east from the Chippewa River towards Clark County to fill, the race is on to plug the gaps in rural internet access. As such, local readers can write and submit letters of support for Mosaic’s application to provide service to the area. Westphal shared more by email after the event.
“We are working hard on assessing and engaging with the county, townships, and residents to understand the need for broadband in Chippewa County,” she said. “As a cooperative, we value rural communities and believe affordable, reliable broadband access will provide necessary infrastructure to work from home, educate online, and create opportunities for telehealth and government online services. Broadband infrastructure will provide Stanley and other Chippewa County communities economic growth and development.
“We need community letters of support to help us create the narrative and formally request for broadband infrastructure. I encourage the community to tell us ‘We want Mosaic’ by visiting our website: ExperienceFiber.com.”
Letters of support are due no later than Feb. 15 to be included with the application to provide service. Each letter contributes to a point system favoring Mosaic’s application. Readers can check their address eligibility by going to the Public Service Commission maps at https://maps.psc.wi.gov/portal/apps/experiencebuilder/experience/?draft=true&id=5bb358d353874254a63c064401442c65&page=home.