Google To Provide Free Internet For Public Housing Residents To All Fiber Markets

VentureBeat, an anonymous reader notes, reports that Google has announced it will expand on an earlier move to provide free internet service to poor Austin residents. Now, rather than for 4300 residents of housing provided by the Housing Authority of Austin, the company "has promised to expand that offering to every other current and future Google Fiber market. The move is part of U.S. President Obama's ConnectHome program, launched by the White House and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) with the goal of bringing Internet connectivity to more school-aged children and families living in HUD-assisted housing in 27 communities across the country. ... Google promises the program will extend to all its Google Fiber cities."

Comments

kind of a crappy deal.

[nimbius]

5Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds

wasnt this kind of connectivity the sort of rate-limited and overpriced stuff the FCC railed against a few months ago? according to TFA there is a $300USD construction fee and 25 dollar monthly fee for this service...meaning Google is offering a nearly comcastic $50 per month for the first year experience of 5 mbps (waiving the construction fee and monthly fee in this case.)

it sets a precedent for things like tiered service, not based on ones ability to pay, but based on your socio-economic status as well. being branded with poverty-net, what would that mean? would it mean the same thing as still maintaining an @aol email address? or worse? And then there are states that google isnt factoring into the equation. the governing legislature of Kansas is working as diligently as they can to convert low income housing assistance programs into a sort of punishment for being poor. I doubt they would go along with providing free fiber, let alone internet, to housing assistance families.