Yeah, damn that Obama for trying to connect schools with internet.

I know at least some of it is connecting Essentia to the new data center on Arrowhead (not sure if there are other plans for it as well).

Yep, the NE Service Cooperative project.

The Northeast Middle Mile Fiber Project will make broadband services viable for a vast geographic region, creating an initial backbone that will serve hundreds of sites along 915 miles of fiber within eight counties including St. Louis, Lake, Cook, Koochiching, Carlton, Pine, Itasca, and Aitkin. A number of anchor institutions will participate in the project including state and municipal agencies, the Arrowhead Library System, SISU Medical System, Minnesota Association of Mental Health Programs, and twenty-eight public school districts. Overall, the project will impact 613,092 residents, 244,574 households, thousands of businesses and governmental agencies and 35,855 public school students from across Northeast Minnesota.

I know not a whole lot of people are familiar with this company but it resides downtown across from Minnesota Power. 

It's a telephone company called Enventis. One of the many services it offers is fiber, which it have been offering to Duluth businesses for years. Some people may know Enventis as the company that acquired CP Internet, which many Duluth dial-up users had back in the 1990s.

The parent company is out of Mankato but there are offices in the metro area as well as Iowa. 

See more info on enventis.com.