About Us

  • CarverLink, a department of the Carver County Public Services Division, is a publicly owned middle mile broadband fiber optics network installed in Carver County, MN (one of the Twin Cities metro counties) that became operational in the fall of 2013. The initial one-time construction costs for the CarverLink Network, formerly known as the Carver County Open Fiber Initiative (CCOFI), were partially funded through an American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) Federal Grant awarded in 2010, with the remaining funding provided by Carver County.  Also, CarverLink has gone through two major expansions that were partially funded through the The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package.  The first expansion  used $6.5 million of ARPA funds for a 2022 approved 360+ mile rural fiber buildout in an overall $10.5 million project, with Metronet responsible for the difference.  The second expansion used an additional $2.5 million ARPA funds for a December 2023 approved 80+ mile rural fiber buildout that completes making fiber available to all remaining rural locations in Carver County, as well as a constructing fiber in the cities of Chanhassen and Victoria in an overall $14.3 million project, with Metronet responsible for the difference.

    CarverLink's Primary Purpose is to:

    • Connect Carver County Govt facilities (includes libraries, 800MHz radio towers, traffic signals, license centers, public works facilities, court house, etc.)

    CarverLink's Secondary Purposes are to (in no particular order):

    • Connect Carver County’s Public and Community Support Entities facilities both in and out of the County (cities, public schools, transit, townships, primary healthcare and colleges, etc.)
    • Provide a middle mile fiber network that allows service providers we partner with to provide high speed last mile internet access to the businesses and residents in the County (currently Metronet and Arvig)
    • Use our middle mile fiber network for collaboration opportunities for the benefit of fiber connectivity in the region, both public and private 

    The initial CarverLink Network consisted of approximately 89 miles of the base ring and 33 miles of lateral middle mile fiber that provided last mile connections to upwards of 80+ public and community anchor institution locations. Since its inception, the CarverLink Network has been expanding both our transport capacity as well our physical middle mile network and, as of 2025, owns or has use of 1200+ miles of fiber throughout Carver County and the surrounding local area that is now used to connect 280+ last mile public and community support locations.

    CarverLink directly provides services to public entities and several community support organizations within Carver County, including the County, cities, public schools, a college, townships, housing and transit authorities, hospitals, and primary medical clinics. CarverLink provides these entities with dark fiber and lit fiber services in the form of internet bandwidth.

    In the private sector, CarverLink does not directly offer or provide fiber connectivity to businesses or residents but instead provides the opportunity for the initial service provider in our network,  Metronet (formerly Jaguar Communications), to provide services to businesses and residents of Carver County. CarverLink also oversees the availability of dark fiber within our fiber network, which is available to qualified service providers or other entities using dark fiber for new opportunities (open access/open interconnect fiber). And through our open-access fiber, services are also available from Broadband-MN and Arvig, utilizing the CarverLink network.

    On June 28, 2022, the Carver County Board of Commissioners approved the largest expansion in the history of the CarverLink Network with their approval of the CarverLink Connect Up Carver Initiative.

    The $10.5 million project leverages the County's existing CarverLink middle mile fiber network to construct 360+ miles of additional middle-mile county-owned fiber routes to serve defined geographical areas of Carver County, primarily rural, identified as underserved and unserved locations. The project is a public/private collaboration between Carver County and Metronet (the private service provider that won the bid for this initiative), which is responsible for offering access to fiber connectivity (last mile) to all desiring residential and business addresses in the project's service area. This initiative, along with other CarverLink efforts and collaborations, strives to provide universal fiber coverage opportunities to everyone in Carver County over the coming years.  The project was completed by the December 31, 2024 deadline.

    On December 12, 2023, the Carver County Board of Commissioners approved the second largest expansion in the history of the CarverLink Network with their approval of the CarverLink Connect Up Carver Expansion.

    The $14.5 million project leverages the County's existing CarverLink middle mile fiber network to construct 80+ miles of additional middle-mile county-owned rural fiber routes that once complete will make fiber connectivity available to every rural location in Carver County that wants it.  This project also builds out fiber to the cities of Chanhassen and Victoria.  The rural portion of this project has a completion deadline of June 30, 2025 and the city build portions of this project have a deadline of June 30, 2026.

    Carver County has created an address search tool that provides information on the county's various broadband efforts for locations throughout the County.

    Click here if you would like a little more in depth history about CarverLink.