Media Contact:
Evan Swarztrauber, (202) 418-2261 
evan.swarztrauber@fcc.gov 
For Immediate Release


Commissioner Carr to Visit the Dakotas and Minnesota
for Senate 5G field hearing, rural broadband, and manufacturing events

WASHINGTON—On Wednesday, October 10, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr will head to the Dakotas and Minnesota for events focused on 5G and rural broadband.  His trip will include broadband construction projects, smart agriculture deployments, telehealth projects, and manufacturing facilities.  He will cap off his trip by testifying at a Senate Commerce field hearing in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Prior to that, Commissioner Carr will be making the following visits:

Wednesday

Carr starts off the morning in Minnesota with a tour of Meridian Blue, a woman-owned tower company.  He’ll tour two tower sites in Eden Prairie and Shorewood, MN, including a rooftop broadband deployment and another at a water tower.  Then he heads to Alexandria, MN, to visit 3M for a tour of their advanced manufacturing facility.  Next, he will meet with Medtronic to learn about their connected healthcare projects.  Then, he will meet with the Farmers Mutual Telephone Co. to see a deployment project and visit with their small business customers to discuss the role of broadband in their communities. 

Thursday

Carr begins the day in North Dakota at Iteris, an applied informatics company in Grand Forks that uses big data to improve agriculture and transportation.  Following that, he goes to Emerado to visit Grand Sky, a testing and research site for drones and unmanned aerial systems.  Then the trip moves back to Minnesota, where Carr will visit Crystal Sugar, a smart-ag beet piling station in Alvarado.  Next, he heads back to North Dakota for a tour of a grain elevator and Midcontinent Communications’ 3.5 GHz CBRS testing sites in Thompson.  He’ll then head to Fargo to tour Midco’s new data center, and then will round out the day with a meeting to learn about an in-the-works project to create a fully autonomous farm in the Fargo area.

Friday

Carr kicks off the day in Yankton, South Dakota, with a visit to Ehresmann Engineering, a steel fabricating and consulting firm, which specializes in communication towers.  After that, he visits Sioux Falls Tower with Congresswoman Kristi Noem for a tower climb and meeting with tower companies.  Then, he’ll head to Rowena, SD, to learn more about the work associated with the broadcast television repacking process.  Then he’ll return to Sioux Falls to testify at a Senate Commerce field hearing convened by Chairman John Thune on “The Race to 5G: a View from the Field.”  

Members of the media are invited to attend any of these events.  Contact Evan Swarztrauber at (202) 418-2261 or evan.swarztrauber@fcc.gov for more information.  

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Office of Commissioner Brendan Carr: (202) 418-2200
ASL Videophone: (844) 432-2275
TTY: (888) 835-5322
Twitter: @BrendanCarrFCC
www.fcc.gov/about/leadership/brendan-carr

This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action. Release of the full text of a Commission order constitutes official action. See MCI v. FCC, 515 F.2d 385 (D.C. Cir. 1974).