Comcast Launching $9.95 Low Income Broadband Plan 277
MojoKid writes "Comcast is launching 'Internet Essentials,' a new initiative offering discounted Internet access and home computers to families that meet low income requirements. The program was mandated as a requirement of Comcast's acquisition of NBC Universal, earlier this year. In that way, it's very similar to AT&T's Naked DSL program, which AT&T was required to offer as a condition of its merger with BellSouth. Internet Essentials will be available wherever Comcast offers broadband, which means 39 states."
Re:I need more information (Score:5, Informative)
It said right in the summary that this was mandated as a condition of the NBC Universal merger. I'm sure Comcast is more than happy to have people believe that this was their idea though.
From the website (Score:5, Informative)
Looks like it's a 1.5/384 connection.
http://www.internetessentials.com/faq/index.html [internetessentials.com]
Re:I need more information (Score:4, Informative)
This six month old story on Ars mentioned more details on the program and 2 of the other major concessions they had to make to get the merger approved. Hiring Meredith Attwell Baker away from the FCC was probably a big help also.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/01/low-cost-broadband-key-to-comcastnbcu-merger-deal.ars [arstechnica.com]
Re:Lack of competition (Score:4, Informative)
I do hope you meant "excluding" Canada, not "example: Canada". In Canada, the absolute cheapest broadband I've seen is a 3meg/256kbit cable connection for $27.95/mo, and that'll still cost you $50 for the installation, and more for the modem purchase. If you already have other services, you can get cheaper (a 512/512 DSL for $24.95, for example... band rate for dry loop makes that one cost more than the cable option above). There's even a cellular provider who will provide you with HSPA for $20/mo if you already have cellular service with them... but that's the caveat: if you already have cellular service with them. That's a minimum $25/mo on top of that (or $20 if you can pay for the whole year in advance). To be fair, that particular provider will sell you unlimited local calling, and no bandwidth limit on the cellular connection for that price, but it's still nowhere near the pricing mentionned in TFA.
As far as I know, there's nobody who will sell you just a broadband Internet connection for anything approaching $10/mo in this country. If somebody can prove me wrong, I would be very interested to hear about it, but Internet is almost as much of a rip-off in Canada as the US.
Re:I need more information (Score:5, Informative)
you are aware that just because something is declared a right, it does not mean that people must be given it...it just means the people have the ability to freely exercise the right.
Re:I need more information (Score:3, Informative)
It's not a necessity to survive.
No, it's not a necessity to survive, but in more and more cases it IS a requirement for kids in school of almost any age. Textbooks are disappearing in class, and the kids are expected to access an online version at home.