A proposed one-time $25 million appropriation for a...

A proposed one-time $25 million appropriation for a rural broadband grant program is headed for a Minnesota Senate vote Tuesday, after being approved by the House Thursday, a House news release said Friday (http://bit.ly/1k6bCyk). The grants, part of a $322 million two-year budget bill, House File-3172 (http://bit.ly/1lFHRBC), would be available to unserved areas that don’t have access to download speeds of 4 Mbps. They would also be available for underserved areas without download speeds of 10 to 20 Mbps. “Broadband is the future of Minnesota,” said Rep. Erik Simonson, of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party: “Minnesota lags behind in technology. Good broadband is a need and it’s frustrating to people when they don’t have the tools that they need."