According to the St Paul Pioneer Press…

About 14,000 low-income Twin Cities households are at risk of losing their low-cost Internet service, which they receive over an old Sprint data network that is expected to disappear Nov. 6.

The Internet service, provided by a St. Paul nonprofit called PCs for People, has permitted cash-strapped Twin Cities residents to ditch dial-up service for a much-faster broadband connection at a comparable cost.

But the service taps a wireless-data technology called WiMax that is not long for this world.

Mobile phone giant Sprint is abandoning its WiMax network as it shifts to the more-modern Long Term Evolution standard, which the other major carriers also use. That is good for typical consumers, but bad news for PCs for People’s disadvantaged customers.

PCs for People works with Mobile Citizen, which works with Sprint. It sounds like Mobile Citizen (and others) are working to find a contingency. It’s a new twist on redundancy. And it’s an urban version of what some rural communities work with all of the time. The people making the decision on infrastructure are far removed from the people who will have or will not have access to broadband based on their choice. It’s frustrating that a business has such control.

The article includes a few stories of the people who are in danger of losing their connectivity. One story provides a glimpse at the impact of broadband on someone with disabilities – another interesting twist…

As the big players in this dispute trade barbs, local users of the low-cost service grow increasingly nervous as the WiMax-shutdown looms.

Melanie Manson, a disabled Golden Valley woman, once made do with dial-up Internet access because that was all she could afford.

The pokey, unreliable online connection “was so frustrating,” said Manson, who copes with a crippling illness called systemic lupus.

That flaky service made her feel even more “like a second-class citizen,” she said. “I was not in tune with the speed of the world, or part of the world.”

In recent years, the woman’s horizons broadened as she tapped into the faster online service offered by PCs for People. She pays only $10 a month, about what she used to pay for AOL dial-up.

“Being disabled is isolating, and this helps me feel less isolated,” Manson said. “I really felt like I was part of society.”

Now she is terrified of losing this freedom. PCs for People has been pointing her and others to alternate lower-cost Internet service from the likes of Comcast and CenturyLink, but none of these offerings are as affordable for Manson.

Comcast and CenturyLink might be a good answer for some people. Both have low income packages – as do several other providers throughout Minnesota.