A lot of companies are participating in the government’s new cheap internet program. So many, in fact, that consumers can sometimes find it all a bit confusing.
Nevertheless, we feel obliged to congratulate one of those companies for making rapid improvements to its version of the program.
Comcast, which introduced Internet Essentials, its version of Lifeline Internet, last year, is already enhancing and improving the service.
The program, which was designed to make high speed broadband internet access available to low-income Americans for just $10 per month, is now bigger, better and faster than ever.
According to an article we found at cedmagazine.com, Comcast initially caught some flak because they made it too difficult for some needy families to qualify for the program.
Susan Jin Davis, Comcast’s Vice President of Communications and Data Services, says they’ve already made three major improvements to Internet Essentials to address the problems.
“These enhancements are really important improvements to our already successful program for a couple of reasons,” Jin Davis said.
“For example, when we first started out, Internet Essentials was offered to families with children eligible to receive ‘free’ school lunches under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). Today, we have officially extended the program to include families with children eligible to receive ‘reduced’ price lunches, too. This change adds about 300,000 households in our service area who can now apply for the program – bringing our estimated total to about 2.3 million eligible families. So the universe of the program just got bigger, which is a good thing.”
But that’s just the beginning. In addition to being available to more needy Americans, Jin Davis notes that Internet Essentials will now offer a blazing fast downstream speed of 3 Mbps, which is double the speed it initially offered.
In another major improvement, Comcast now offers instant approval for all students at schools with the highest percentage of school lunch participation.
Congratulations, Comcast. These are all excellent improvements to an already excellent program.
On behalf of all needy Americans, we truly appreciate your efforts to bring high-speed internet access to the people who need it most.
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