Blog
Holiday Hours
November 17, 2011
With the holiday season fast approaching we’d like to let you know about our holiday hours:
Thursday November 24 Closed for the Thanksgiving holiday
Friday November 25 – open as usual
Monday December 26 – Closed for the Christmas holiday
Monday January 2 – Closed for the New Year
We will be monitoring our system at all times and will work diligently if an outage occurs. Please feel free to call in and leave a brief message at any time if you are experiencing trouble with your service. We will check messages over the holidays.
Richter named to Governor’s Broadband Taskforce
November 15, 2011
MVTV Wireless is proud to announce that it’s own President, Dan Richter, was recently named to the 15 member Governor’s Task Force on Broadband. The task force is charged with developing policies to promote the expansion of Broadband Access in Minnesota. Click here to read the full news release from the Governor’s office.
Federal Stimulus Funding Update
November 9, 2011
Awarded Federal Stimulus Funding Update
In March 2010, MVTV Wireless was happy to announce that we were awarded funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Since then we have been hard at work upgrading and expanding in accordance with ARRA.
There are 3 main sections to the ARRA stimulus project.
- Upgrade the current system: We have completed upgrading the 11 areas within our existing system. The upgrades have quadrupled our back-haul capacity.
- Add new access points: The plan called for 34 new sites to be built in communities that were previously un-served or under-served. As of November 3rd, 2011 we have completed 33 of the 34 new areas with the last one in Nicollet, MN being installed within the next few days. MVTV will continue to expand our service area far past our specified project. We have several more new service areas in the works.
- Service new customers: Lastly the plan calls for adding an additional minimum 1500 new subscribers to our expanding system. Since April 2010 we have added over 1000 new subscribers, 236 of these new installs qualify under the stimulus project.
One of ARRA’s main objectives is to stimulate economic growth through job creation. Due to our expansion, through our ARRA project, we have grown to employ 8 full-time positions. To meet the needs of our growing customer base we have added 4 new service technicians and a new office person within the last 6 months.
While so many funded projects have yet to get off the ground, we are excited to say we have fulfilled almost all of the ARRA expectations. Most of all, we are happy to have to opportunity to expand MVTV to help serve more of rural Southern and Southwestern Minnesota.
More information about USDA’s Recovery Act efforts is available at www.usda.gov/recovery . More information about the Federal government’s efforts on the Recovery Act is available at www.recovery.gov
Important Equipment Upgrade Announcement
November 4, 2011
A little over 2 months ago MVTV embarked on an upgrade to our main licensed internet system located in Granite Falls. It called for dividing this one system into 7 transmit sites while increasing the overall system capacity; Granite Falls, Clarkfield, Cottonwood, Marshall, Minneota, Canby and Montevideo.
As of November 1st, MVTV has completed installation of the new equipment on 6 of the 7 proposed sites. The only site not completed is Canby which we are waiting for a new state tower to be constructed.
With this change all customers on this system will also need to be upgraded. Only customers that get their internet signal directly from our main Granite Falls tower and have a modem will be part of this upgrade. Each customer will receive new outdoor equipment and new Cat5 wiring to your router or computer at no charge. Our customer service reps will call you as soon as possible or you may contact our office at any time to schedule an upgrade appointment.
MVTV technicians have already completed 152 change-overs as of Thursday, November 3, 2011.
Future Expanded TV Programming
October 21, 2011
Recently we upgraded our TV system to a digital signal. This allows us to bring better and more programming to current and future customers. We’ve started with a basic lineup and are now looking to create a new expanded programming lineup in the near future. Your opinion in determining this lineup is important to us. Please take a few minutes to tell us what your favorite TV channels are (you do not need to be a current MVTV customer). Pick as many channels as you’d like. This will help us determine the best possible expanded programming lineup.
