From the "11 CDs for one penny!" marketing of the Columbia House Record Club to today's slick "Just click to subscribe" trickery, columnist Tammy Swift struggles to navigate the complex world of auto-renewals, free trial periods and digital subscriptions.
Money to subsidize rural broadband initiatives has been limited, but recently the Minnesota Legislature approved $70 million for high-speed internet and the U.S. Senate passed an infrastructure package this week that would give the state at least $100 million for broadband upgrades. The infrastructure bill is now moving onto the House.
Approximately $20 million in grant funding was set aside for both the 2020 and 2021 rounds of the program by the Minnesota Legislature in 2019 amid a larger state government effort to make high-speed internet more widely accessible.
There is not dramatically more demand for the internet as a result of people working and going to school at home, but the peak usage times have changed, and the way telecom companies provide broadband service is more cautious as we deal with the coronavirus pandemic.
BRAINERD, Minn. — People spend a lot of their free time online with their digital devices — a shocking and almost unbelievable amount — according to a recently released study by Verizon.
ST. PAUL -- Echoing a recent trend in other states, for the first time a lawsuit has been filed in Minnesota alleging that websites--in this case, belonging to a county and couple of cities--violate disability law.
