For years, residents of remote Beaver Island more than 30 miles offshore from the mainland in northern Lake Michigan have said they want better internet access. They specifically want fiber-optic connections to every home, business, and community gathering place.
That destination is becoming visible on the horizon.
Michigan state officials this week announced a state rural readiness grant for the nonprofit Beaver Island Association to plot a course to extend broadband internet across the community, confirm build-out costs, and establish a township-owned system to provide high-speed internet service.
A $43,000 grant to Beaver Island was among $1.3 million in Michigan rural readiness grants announced by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this week. Those funds are intended to help rural communities build capacity, drive economic development and improve quality of life for residents.
“Every Michigander deserves access to economic opportunity, no matter their zip code,” Whitmer said in a released statement.
The state grant program is designed to make sure rural communities have necessary tools for today’s economy.
Susan Corbin, director of the state Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, said these grants help to “level the playing field for rural communities, allowing them to compete for economic opportunities on equal footing with larger, urban areas.”
Faster online access has been a concern for Beaver Island residents, especially in recent years as internet speeds grew faster just about everywhere but there. And it’s not only home connections that remain slow and clunky, but also those for the local school, rural health center, public library, Central Michigan University’s biological research station, and dozens of businesses.
That’s why island residents petitioned the Federal Communications Commission in 2023 to require broadband carriers that receive legacy federal funds to install fiber-optic cable rather than simply quickening speeds to minimum standards on existing, twisted copper DSL gear.
In a federal filing, Beaver Island residents described online connections like theirs in rural and disfavored urban areas of the nation as “antiquated,” a “vast wasteland,” and a hurdle to achieving “any meaningful work.”
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It’s only last-mile connections across the far-flung island worrying residents at this point.
Two years ago, a middle-mile broadband provider was contracted for $61 million to build out 525 miles of new fiber networks through underserved communities across the state. Among the routes was a plan to lay underwater fiber-optic internet connections from Lower Michigan to Beaver Island, and then underwater again and beyond to the Upper Peninsula.
Other examples of projects across Michigan to receive rural readiness grant awards this week include:
- Eastern Upper Peninsula Intermedia School District, $50,000 to assess regional mental health needs, particularly for students experiencing severe post-COVID mental health challenges;
- Manistee County Community Foundation, $50,000 to address regional childcare shortages and strengthen childcare options for families;
- Northeast Michigan Council of Governments, $50,000 to establish a multi-county land bank and brownfield redevelopment strategy to address housing shortages, reduce blight, and support economic revitalization;
- Otsego Community Foundation, $50,000 for a feasibility study and housing development plan for Otsego County to create at least 50 attainable homes;
- Shiawassee Family YMCA, $50,000 to expand and renovate space to help address the county’s childcare shortage; and,
- West Michigan Shoreline Regional Development Commission, $50,000 to develop a West Michigan agricultural analysis.
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