The Itasca County Fair is August 15-19 in Grand Rapids. Stop by our booth at the Itasca County Fair in Grand Rapids and learn more about our Smart Home services, check out PBTV HD, DVR, PBTV Everywhere, and On Demand, our all-fiber optic fast Internet service powered by the GigaZone, and get a free deck of playing cards while supplies last.

We’re Paul Bunyan Communications and we’re right here in Itasca County!

• For more information on the Itasca County Fair, visit itascacountyfair.org

Paul Bunyan Communications and the Bemidji Downtown Alliance present Mississippi Music at the Bemidji Waterfront every Wednesday through August 29! (except July 4) Admission is free and the concerts are from 6-8 PM featuring a new band each week.

Join us lakeside for music with food vendors and beer garden on site.

• Mississippi Music Festival
• Mississippi Music on Facebook

The 2018 Cooperative Celebration saw one of the nicest days of the event’s history, drawing over 5,700 to our Bemidji headquarters on May 23 and making the night another resounding success!

The 62nd Annual Business Meeting of Paul Bunyan Rural Telephone Cooperative was held prior to the Open House at 3:30 p.m. The meeting included reports for the 2017 fiscal year and the re-election of board director Glenda Martin, District 6 and election of new director Mark Matteson, District 4. Both candidates were unopposed at their respective Caucus held in April.

The Cooperative Celebration was open to the public and featured a free walleye dinner prepared by the Bemidji Fire Department Fish Fry Crew and Lueken’s Village Foods, door prizes, kids’ activities like face painting, balloons, temporary tattoos, storytelling, animals and entertainment from the Headwaters Science Center, United States Tennis Association’s Quickstart Tennis, Concordia Language Villages, and special guests The Rugrats from Nickelodeon and Wes Walz, former Minnesota Wild Captain and current Fox Sports North Wild Analyst. The Wrecking Crew from Grand Rapids provided the musical entertainment.

Special thanks to the over 130 employees of Paul Bunyan Communications who made the event possible and run as smooth as possible! We would also like to thank the Bemidji Fire Department, Lueken’s Village Foods, The Party Store, Minnesota State Patrol, Bemidji Police Department, Beltrami County Sheriff’s Department, Paul Bunyan Transit, Minnesota Department of Transportation, Headwater’s Science Center, Bob’s Econo Pump, Bemidji Area Tennis Association, Boy Scouts, Concordia Language Villages, Boys and Girls Club of Bemidji, Sanford Health Accessories, and Raphael’s Bakery for all their help.

• Check out the picture gallery from this year’s Cooperative Celebration on our Facebook page

Recently new federal legislation was passed that allows Internet Service Providers to sell their customers’ web browsing history. Paul Bunyan Communications wants to reassure its members that no matter what the law allows they do not collect and sell member’s web browsing history.

“Our members’ privacy is of the utmost importance to our member-owned and governed cooperative. We have never sold member web browsing history and have no plans to do so in the future regardless of what the rules and regulations may allow,” said Gary Johnson, Paul Bunyan Communications CEO/General Manager.

“As you might imagine we are getting calls from concerned customers and members of our cooperative as the news of this new legislation spreads. We feel it is extremely important to reassure our customers that our cooperative will not sell their web browsing history. It’s your cooperative and your data, period. Any provider who sells their customers’ web browsing history without their consent is putting profits ahead of the trust of its customers and we believe that flies in the face of common decency, customer privacy, and certainly our cooperative values and principles,” added Johnson.

Second award the GigaZone Gaming Championship has received in 2017

Paul Bunyan Communications’ GigaZone Gaming Championship, the first stadium-style eSporting event in northern Minnesota, has been awarded the Calix Best Innovation in Residential Subscriber Experience for 2017.

The Calix Innovation Awards are given annually to Calix customers – technology companies from around the world – who demonstrated outstanding creativity when leveraging Calix technology to deploy best-in-class services. The award recognizes innovation in the use of access, premises, and cloud technologies to transform businesses and networks.

“Congratulations to Paul Bunyan Communications on their Best of Innovation in Residential Subscriber Experience Award!” said Michael Weening, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Calix. “Typically, events of this type and caliber are only found in major metropolitan areas. The GigaZone Gaming Championship and other progressive initiatives underscore Paul Bunyan’s commitment to their rural region and their willingness to be industry innovators and leaders, whether that’s building one of the largest rural all-fiber optic gigabit broadband networks in the country or creating this exceptional gaming event. The award is well deserved.”

“We are honored to receive this innovation award from Calix. It’s very rewarding to see how the region is embracing this event that showcases our Calix-enabled broadband technology and creative and talented technical team. Attendance doubled at our second GigaZone Gaming Championship held in September!” said Gary Johnson, Paul Bunyan Communications CEO/General Manager.

This international award is the second prominent recognition the GigaZone Gaming Championship has received this year. In May, Paul Bunyan Communications received the 2017 TeleChoice Award for their complete marketing campaign of the GigaZone Gaming Championship by the NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association. The annual awards program honors excellence in public relations and marketing.

• GigaZone Gaming Championship

Cooperative will bring Broadband network to 834 locations

Paul Bunyan Communications has been awarded a Border to Border Broadband Grant from the state of Minnesota to expand its fiber optic services to portions of St Louis, Hubbard and Itasca Counties.

As a result, the cooperative will begin expansion construction next spring that will pass a minimum of 830 locations. The areas include the Hwy 34 corridor between Nevis and Park Rapids in Hubbard County [Map: Park Rapids HWY 34 Cooridor], portions of the Side Lake Area that include locations in both Itasca County [Map: Side Lake Area] and St. Louis County, and an area Southeast of Bigfork and North of Scenic Highway [Map: Scenic Highway North]. The project is estimated to cost $1.78 million, with Paul Bunyan Communications contributing $980,990, and the State of Minnesota Border to Border grant contributing $802,620.

“We are excited to continue our efforts to bring broadband Internet speeds and services to those currently without it in our region. Our cooperative has a long history of expanding our network to unserved areas but it has become more difficult to go it alone without grant support. Thanks to the State of Minnesota Border to Border Grant Program we will be able to reach even more homes and businesses with speeds of up to a Gigabit per second further extending one of the largest rural Gigabit networks in the country!,” said Gary Johnson, Paul Bunyan Communications CEO/General Manager.

Paul Bunyan Communications expects to finalize the expansion plans by early spring and will contact locations along the upcoming expansion routes shortly thereafter. Construction will start in the summer and will be completed by June 30, 2020. Those in the region interested in keeping up to date on the project can look for updates here on our website. Those in Itasca County can also join the Paul Bunyan Communications Itasca County Fiber Projects group on Facebook.

“This is a big deal to those in our project areas. I am excited about the opportunities that Paul Bunyan’s technology will bring to these locations. Employees will be able to work from home, students will have access to vast educational resources at incredible speeds, and seniors will be able to stay in their homes longer with telemedicine.” added Steve Howard, Paul Bunyan Communications Information Technology and Development Manager. “Access to high quality affordable Internet has been our focus at the cooperative since 1999. Our team has built a world class all-fiber optic network that has made it happen.” said Howard.

“I must salute the hard work of our elected officials who have championed the Border to Border Broadband Grant Program. I want to thank all of them and also the Office of Broadband Development that oversees the program. This makes a world of difference in so many ways to a lot of people right here in northern Minnesota!” said Johnson.