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Comcast Gives 6 Months Free Internet To Poor and Unpaid Bill Amnesty
An anonymous reader writes with news about a controversial Comcast program designed to give internet access to the poor that just got a little better. After complaints about a program that offers cheap Internet service to poor people, Comcast today announced it will provide "up to six months" of free Internet to new subscribers and an "amnesty" program for families with unpaid bills. Comcast's Internet Essentials, mandated by the federal government when Comcast acquired NBCUniversal, gives $10-per-month Internet service to low-income households with schoolchildren. Critics have argued that the program is too hard to sign up for, that eligibility criteria should be less strict, and that further requirements should be implemented if Comcast is allowed to buy Time Warner Cable.
But after the free six months is up, good luck trying to cancel the service.
And this is exactly why I wish Google Fiber was deployed in more areas. They have a simple solution: a FREE tier for life.
https://fiber.google.com/citie...
And as far as the $300 setup fee, I'm not sure about other cities, but Portland is working on subsidies to cover this cost as well, so it is $0 for low income families to have basic 5mbps internet service.
having tutored several underprivileged kids in a large urban environment (and having witnessed how when left to their own devices they used their internet access for NOT educational rich-poor-divide-shrinking stuff, but rather typical time-wasting stuff ) this seems like a poor answer to social responsibility to me for a $139 billion company that is Comcast.
Without guidance and structure, 'for the children' will go to the lowest common denominator, so basically, they are subsidizing a new generation of kids to grow up addicted to watching 'teen-wolf' on MTV-tube.
What might actually be nice would to see comcast, oh, i dont know, sponsor after-school computer education programs? Or frankly anything that provides for the real thing that tends to be absent in households that are barely making ends meet - additional educational structure.
The only way the merger should be approved (and it really shouldn't ever be approved), would be if both Comcast and TIme Warner were to be forced to shed all content creation entities, as well as content distribution entitities.
ie.
You can be an internet provider / Cable company
or
You can be a content creation entity
In reality this should be enforced today with AT&T, Verizon, Comcast and Time-Warner as they are.
It's a conflict of interest to control both content and content delivery channels.
Oh how wonderfully altruistic Comcast is!! Such a wonderful company. Just makes me want to vomit a little in my mouth.
I'm sure Google is your friend, but I'd rather have a solution from my own municipal government that provides the service for us. The internet is a public utility like water, sewer, and given the infrastructure requirements with running fiber, I'd rather it be kept in house.
Not the exploitative franchising of the cable industry, which just lead to private companies lobbying for the laws that they want, but real systems that are run and operated at home.
It's sorta like the guys at GitMo telling their guests today they get free waterboarding.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
Did anyone expect Comcast to actually honor the spirit of the low cost Internet Essentials agreement? Hands???
I actually think it'd be more useful for adults to try to find work. But I guess comcast just wants to do the minimum possible
If the parents can't afford the service now, why do you tihnk they can in 6 months? Seems petty and short-sighted to me.
...with 5 year contract at %150 the going rate, and a cancellation penalty of death.
Didn't Comcast just top the list of most hated companies? To beat outfits like Monsanto, you've got to work hard. A press release about charitable works just isn't going to change that.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm a Comcast TV and internet subscriber (not really by choice, as in many places it's the only solid option). Over the past few weeks I've seen an ad from, by, and for Comcast promoting this service... over and over and over. It shows a kid in school with some narration about how everything would be better if only he had access to the internet, then he goes home, and imagine that! A Comcast truck is sitting outside his home, hooking up some internet service!
Comcast loves kids, loves schools, and wants to help all students do research for their education! Yeah, right. This is a very low cost (or free), but also extremely low service plan. You have to be around or below the poverty level to qualify. The local news did a segment recently and the way they presented it, Comcast won't be letting you sign up unless you can prove that you qualify for food stamps and free school lunches. I'm not looking to go into a welfare debate, but living in a city with a fairly high number of section 8 residents, many of the folks who would qualify for the Internet Essentials plan are already paying Comcast for much better services using subsidies from other sources.
I love the idea of internet access being available to everyone, but don't think for a moment that Comcast is doing this out of some kind of corporate benevolence. It was required the last time they were involved in a giant merger (buying out NBC) and they're finally getting around to promoting it in hopes of their next giant merger (with Time Warner) being approved.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
I was denied raises because 'I have no children' and that 'other people (pieces of sh&t)' need the money more....
if i had the raises and money that the other other breeders had then i could be a breeder tooo.
f&*k this
jim
From TFS:
[Emphasis Added]
Regardless of Comcast's record of "helping" the poor or any other "requirements" to be levied against Comcast, they should not be allowed to purchase TWC under any circumstances. That would concentrate far too much "last mile" power into too few hands.
Of course, that's the point so the deal will go through and we'll have another win for regulatory capture.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
Comcast is legally required to support registration of customer's own DOCSIS modem but the majority of customer service isn't trained on how to honor the requirement or who to correctly transfer a customer to for getting it done.
Comcast is legally required to support Cable Card capable devices. Some members of customer service claim they don't provide Cable Cards. Even if you find one that acknowledges they have them, they will send a tech out with no cable cards to install and reschedule for another 6 hour window you need to wait. If they do arrive with cable cards, it is not uncommon for them to be broken or not correctly registered in the Comcast database for pairing. Last cable card install took four scheduled tech visits and only happen after being told we would be filing grievances with the FCC.
Comcast is legally required to honor their advertised 30-day money-back satisfaction guarantee. Otherwise, the advertisement would be fraud. But Comcast claims it isn't actually accountable for any of their services so it seems like the majority of satisfaction issues are rejects as being "outside of their control."
Of course it is hard to sign up for an inexpensive program that Comcast doesn't really want to offer. That is what they do with everything they pretend to offer but don't really want to provide. Their PR will gladly point to the statistic of 350,000 sign ups but never state what they had to go through to get it. They also will never provide honest statistics about how many people where turned down or lied to that they don't offer the program. They get the benefit from having poorly train customer service of themselves not really knowing the real number of people they turned away.
This cycle of requiring customers to jump through hoops to get what Comcast is legally required to provide but wants to make it hard as possible to provide is never going to change. There will be no improvement made by allowing Comcast to merge with TW.
Ok to reject the Comcast/TWC merger now...
Seriously, this is getting to be total bullshit. The US Government, which I might add basically paid for it, should just nationalize it. This crony capitalism bullshit is just that: bullshit.
Internet is a basic necessity, and therefore a basic human right. Fast, USABLE internet should be available to every single address in the United States, free of charge. It is one of the most important responsibilities of government to "provide for the general welfare," and that includes a basic income, basic utilities, and sustenance, for anyone who needs them.
Some utilities are privately owned (usually phone and power). It's water and sewage that might be public companies. Trash might be private companies based on competitive bidding. I'm not an expert and can't research on my phone, so take with a grain of salt.
Those private utilities are regulated unlike cable companies. To be fair, cable tv started as a complete luxury. But now it's really a telecomm service and should have some oversight over industry practices.
A simple way to get lower prices is to introduce a virtual network model (where third parties sell the service over Comcast's lines). It already exists for cell phones (see MVNO). It could even apply to municipal fiber networks.
If all the people online who complained about Comcast wrote their legislatures, there might be some legal change. Failing that, I suppose someone could sue Comcast as an overbearing vertical monopoly.
I know you liberals can't be bothered to actually read an article, but come on, the summary is just a few sentences.
After the six free months, it US $10 / month.
I've heard that Comcast sucks. If you think they do, you have two choices:
a) tell people why Comcast sucks
b) totally make shit up out of thin air, so readers think that people complaining about Comcast are liars and idiots
Some waste, fraud, abuse and improper management happen in any system. Obviously too much is a problem but it is equally as bad to obsess over reaching 100% perfection.
Simply because they own a TV doesn't indicate a great deal; they could have previously had one, been given one, stole one, etc. It would be difficult and vindictive to make them sell everything they had in order to not starve. There are plenty of pawn shops all over the place so we must have plenty of victims for those vultures... not that one can get much money for those things used anyhow. If you only hand out food stamps to homeless naked people are you going to feel slighted because they have shoes? Sure, YOU won't (but not everybody) but you have to keep in mind that studies show that the poor are pretty bad with money as well as capable of finding ways around their troubles (actually proving capitalist ideals about being inventive) such as eating subgrade food or cutting other corners so they can save up and buy the TV they think they need. After all, TV IS THE DRUG OF THE NATION. Homeless starving addicts will skip meals for a fix.
As far as implying that a race is making up most the people on food stamps etc, it is likely not based in reality as the whites are usually higher in such numbers than other "races" and while it is true that as a % of the demographic the minorities may be doing worse but they are by definition a smaller population so the absolute numbers come out different. Now if one actually treated the whites equally I don't think their % would differ as much as it does and then the absolute numbers would explode (because their population is so much higher.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Part of the issue is that Comcast buys laws, and many areas have a one party system at the local level, this leads to corruption and ignoring the constituents no matter which party it is.
Sometimes there's a decent primary in those areas, other times, the party has that pretty much on lock-down too.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
> Umm, please name any skein of human culture not rife with liars and idiots.
Good point. Just before reading your message, I was dealing with yet another moron hosting company who doesn't know how to copy files. I was curious, so I clicked on their employment page. They're hiring server administrators in California at $16 / hour - less than gas station clerks make. Surprise, for $16 / hour in California they get server admins who are morons.
And you're right, those aren't liberals, they're Californians. Oh wait ... ;)
You know this goes along with free lunch, Obama phones, cheap cable TV and yes internet. It seems America has become the freeloader capital
of the World. Everyone wants to come to America especially if your unskilled, uneducated and unmotivated. Remember when America was the land of opportunity? I am not sure a bunch of free services and programs paid buy what few still work in America was what it meant.
Who is Bill Amnesty? Should I know him?
So if you're a low life and can't/won't pay your bills, you now get more free stuff?
Wait, we're going to give more free crap to the welfare crowd in exchange for letting one of the WORST providers of a 'public utility' gouge the shit out of everyone else?
Makes perfect sense to me.