Posted on 08/17/2011 6:01:02 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
PITTSBURGH -- Comcast has a new program that lowers the price of its monthly Internet service from $48 to $9.95 for families whose children qualify for free school lunch.
The "Internet Essentials" program is being rolled out for the upcoming school year. It was announced Tuesday at the Urban League of Greater Pittsburgh offices downtown.
"It has the capacity to equalize educational activity and to bring the same high-quality educational materials to kids in our hardest-hit urban districts and the kids in our wealthiest suburban districts," a Comcast spokesman said.
(Excerpt) Read more at wtae.com ...
In Maryland most of us ditched Comcast for Verizon FIOS after they layed fiberoptic cables in all the neighborhoods,
Very happy to say goodbye to Comcast. Good luck with the welfare crowd.
WOW...who could have seen this coming? Comcast...announced at the Urban League...Is this economic justice? Guess who is paying for this...bohica strikes again
Satellite is starting to look better and better.
I assume this is part of what the FCC extorted out of Comcast in order to approve the NBC deal?
I wonder how I can get that?
Oh, wait! I’m the guy who has to subsidize it!
Good thing I switched.
helping subsidize flash mobs!
Chicago mob extortion, pure and simple.
Obama’s FCC placed a condition on Comcast’s acquisition of NBC that they would approve the deal only if they gave free or low-cost broadband to the “right” people.
Go rent Evita again and you’ll know all you need to know about this administration.
How are they going to organize which places to attack if they don’t have access to the internet?! Where’s your compassion?!
And its still a rip off for $9.95 per month.
The cost to deliver that Internet is probably about 2 bucks per subscriber - no matter what level service they buy. 48 bucks a month for Internet service is netting Comcast about 44 bucks per month. 10 bucks per month still nets them 8 bucks a month.
On top of the service charge you can be sure there will be a severe download cap, a charge to rent the modem, and a charge for anti virus software. Probably be a charge for any “service calls” that are needed as well.
Comcast will lose no money on this deal.
Not sure about Comcast, but in our area we have Bright House Networks as a primary competitor to FIOS. FIOS claims to be the only outfit utilizing LC-to-LC type fiber to their modems and 10 GBps fiber WAN, but in reality, Bright House, a cable provider, has an astronomically larger fiber footprint than Verizon ever will despite the client-side use of coax for connectivity.
Comcast probably has an expansive fiber network considering high definition channels require the bandwidth that only optical fiber can provide. If Comcast is as shitty as it was when I was in college, then they probably deserve what they get with this subsidization scheme.
My guess right now: Comcast loses their ass to non-paying welfare customers and goes begging the Fed for a handout.
lol!
Meaningless. These are people that are used to getting things for FREE. They’ll pay for a few months and then NSF the bill.
Yes. The ultimate goal is to steer the world wide web toward "universal service."
Comcast has a new program that lowers the price of its monthly Internet service from $48 to $9.95 for families whose children qualify for free school lunch.
SOME families??? Do you realize how many kids at your local public school qualify for free lunch???
I'm guessing it's something like 90% at the school Mrs. Eagle used to work at.
Why do you have internet/computer at all if your kid has to get a free school lunch?
The rest of their subscribers will make up the difference. If I see my bill go up in the next year I’m going back to Dish.
If more than 50% kids qualify for school lunch at some schools - ALL KIDS qualify for school lunch so kids don’t get made fun of..
Meanwhile the people who pay the bill in full are screwed!
Think of it
College Tuition - Earn more Pay More
Cable Bill - Earn more Pay More
Groceries - Earn more Pay More (No Food Stamped)
The list goes on and on.. And oh you also pay more taxes!
The way Comcast's system works your Internet gets automatically shut off the day your bill is late. It happened to me 3 months in a row when they messed up my automatic payment plan. I ended up dropping them a few months later, not because of speed or service but because of their download cap. Switched to AT&T's U-Verse because they had no caps. Naturally they changed their policy to the same cap as Comcast a few months later but AT&T is still better than Comcast because they will just charge you more money while Comcast will warn you then suspend your service.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.