One of the conditions of the approval of Comcast’s NBCUniversal acquisition was to make affordable broadband available to the less fortunate in their serving territory. Comcast has responded with just that, and introduced Internet Essentials.
Internet Essentials will offer $10/month broadband (1 Mb/s download speed) and the ability to purchase a basic computer for $150 to households with at least one child who receives free school lunches through the National School Lunch Program. The program will also offer ‘digital literacy’ training.
Comcast announced the program today in Chicago. The program will kick-off during the 2011-12 school year within Comcast’s footprint. The program will run for three years, but Comcast says as long as a child in the household is receiving free lunch at school, they will continue to offer the discounted tier.
Nice to see they include the cheap computer with the cheap broadband.
How can we get our hands on these $150 computers? That will help us sell more broadband and we could charge more than 10 bucks!