OCTOBER 8 T H , 2015

Palmer Wireless B2B Project

Palmer Wireless Overview

Started by the Kangas’ and Tim Boie as a wireless internet provider for the Clear Lake rural area in 2006 due to lack of internet access for our community

Added 3.5G technology in 2009 and expanded the service offering to include a larger area in central MN and became a cellular phone service provider

Added the Citescape unlicensed network to the business offering in central Minnesota in November of 2014

Added Duet IP to the Palmer Wireless business in June of 2015

Serving over 3,000 wireless internet and cellular phone customers in central Minnesota

Added fiber to the premise customers in October 2015

Fiber Project Summary

Becker Industrial Park consists of 24 businesses on the West side of the city of Becker

Current broadband is through Windstream’s copper DSL, or from various wireless solutions

The City of Becker became concerned that businesses would leave or not be attracted to the park due to lack of adequate broadband

Becker is Palmer Wireless’ “hometown” along with Palmer Township with many business and personal ties to the community

Project scope

Construction of 20,000 feet of main artery network that reached from the Palmer Wireless fiber hut at Becker Schools to the Becker Industrial Park

All construction was in 1 ¼ conduit144 count fiber and 48 count fiber were usedPermits secured from State of MN, Sherburne County, City

of Becker and Burlington NorthernCalix was selected as the electronics vendor and Clearfield

was selected as the fiber drop and patch panel solutionNewCore was selected as the Engineering and Project

Management vendorMichel’s was selected as the contractor for fiber and vault

installation

Becker Industrial Park Map

Project Challenges

BNSF crossing was very time consuming and costlyPre Securing the customers for service

Some businesses wanted to wait until it was completely built Some businesses didn’t need more bandwidth (yet!)

Time management with other concurrent projectsDemand for other services such as fax and voice in

addition to broadbandRight of way constraints, especially on Liberty LaneConstant locate requests during construction when

the conduit wasn’t able to be located

Success to date

October 1st marked the launch of the first commercial customers delivering up to 100 Mbps down and up Becker Furniture World Fire Bugsz Vogel Display

25% of the businesses in the park have committed to service prior to construction

Media coverage and local support have been greatCity of Becker has been very good to work with

during the pre construction and construction modeNo resident complaints during construction and no

lines hit by the construction crew

Going forward goals

Securing 75% of the businesses in the parkLeverage this project to serve additional

areas that are in need of high quality local service

99.99% reliability Expanding to 1 Gbps service in the next 12

months