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Comcast Expands $10 Low-Income Internet Plan (arstechnica.com)

Posted by msmash on from the cheap-internet dept.

Jon Brodkin, reporting for Ars Technica: Comcast's Internet Essentials program that provides $10-per-month Internet service to low-income families has been expanded to make about 1.3 million additional households eligible. Comcast created Internet Essentials in order to secure approval of its acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011 and has decided to continue it indefinitely even though the requirement expired in 2014. Comcast says the 10Mbps plan has connected more than 600,000 low-income families since 2011, for a total of 2.4 million adults and children, and provided 47,000 subsidized computers for less than $150 each. Advocates for the poor have complained that the Internet Essentials service is too hard to sign up for, in part because of problems with the application process but also because it's usually only available to families with kids in school. That latter issue is what Comcast addressed today, announcing that "adults without a child eligible for the National School Lunch Program will be eligible to apply for Internet Essentials." Previously, pilot programs gave access to some low-income seniors and low-income community college students, but this is the first time that Internet Essentials will be available to adults without children nationwide.

6 of 61 comments (clear)

  1. Oh look how generous they are by NotInHere · · Score: 2

    We must agree to the TWC Comcast merger to support this generous company! They are really so good to people!

    1. Re:Oh look how generous they are by rhazz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It probably turns out that selling low-quality internet to the masses for $10/mo is still very profitable, especially when these new customers don't overlap the existing customer base forced to pay $60/mo.

    2. Re: Oh look how generous they are by BlytheBowman · · Score: 2

      I love how people rag on the poor when we have a giant military budget which buys useless shit like F-35s (what's the projected cost on that one, 3 *T*rillion with over 1 Trillion spent?), a huge prison gulag (the highest prison pop. in the world in the land of the free, "black budget" projects for God knows what (black budget=blank check), routine expensive luxury trips for politicians, corporate welfare that does not havve to be paid back and other gov't abuse and waste, and so on and so on. But please, don't let reality spoil your hatred for poor citizens who could use a hand.

  2. Comcast is a GSM yet not regulated under the PUC by colin_faber · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So Comcast is a government sanctioned monopoly, but some how are not subject to PUC regulation. This results in the garbage plans I'm forced to buy. Someone please explain to me why I can purchase a bundled package for $70 or so with internet, a rented cable box, and HBO, yet if I just want internet it's $150 a month. Why is such a bullshit pricing scheme allowed to continue? If Comcast can deliver the service for $70, than a lesser service should never exceed that price. Where's the PUC when you need them? Nowhere, as most of them are bought off. I sure as hell don't expect anything to change if the NBC/Comcast candidate wins the presidency.

  3. Wow... by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 5, Funny

    I knew being poor in America sucked, but I never realized it would mean having Comcast as your only affordable option. Isn't that a human rights violation or something?

  4. Re:So anyone with a kid ... by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Were we to confine school children the same way we confine criminals and thus assume responsibility for their care and welfare as we do when we incarcerate someone, I'd be all for free room and board for all of them. Keep them off the streets. A logical extension to the old "children should be seen and not heard", except not seen either.

    In fact, if the state had them in school 24/7/365.25, they could be educated faster and become productive taxpayers sooner. No summer break to forget stuff. Classes from 7AM to 9PM. That should cut the time from 13 years for a high-school diploma down to about 6. Put them to work at about 11 years old.

    And, of course, because the state educated them without any parental interference, they'd be happy workers doing whatever it is that is most needed.

    No, criminals are people that the state has taken control of and therefore responsibility for. I do not want the state taking control of all the children. The parents are responsible.