Fixed wireless service provider Starry is partnering with media company Ziff Davis and non-profit Human-I-T to provide low cost computing devices to public and affordable housing residents in areas in which Starry offers its low-cost Starry Connect service.
Starry Connect provides low cost broadband services to families in public and affordable housing. The service is available in more than 55,000 units of this type of housing in Los Angeles, Boston, New York City, Denver, Columbus, OH and Washington, D.C.
As a press release explains, Ziff Davis will donate “gently used” devices — including laptops, monitors and CPUs — to Human-I-T, which will refurbish them for sale. Starry will “receive the benefit of the value of the refurbished devices” and provide credits to Starry Connect customers to “select and purchase the device that best fits their needs and budget through” Human-I-T’s website.
“Having home broadband is only useful if you have a reliable device to take you where you need to go online, for work, school, health care and taking care of basic things like paying bills and accessing news,” Virginia Lam Abrams, Starry’s Senior Vice President of Government Affairs and Strategic Advancement, said in a press release. “At Starry, we’re always looking for ways to bring together companies that believe as deeply as we do in the power of digital access and the need to advance digital equity in our most underserved communities.”
Starry Connect, which launched in 2018, provides broadband service starting at $15 per month with no data caps, long-term contracts or extra equipment fees. It includes free installation and 24/7 customer service.
In June 2021, Starry said that it would work with Microsoft’s Airband Initiative to provide broadband to zip codes deemed underserved and income insecure in Detroit. Work on the network was slated to begin this year. At the time, it was estimated that 40% of residents of the city and almost 70% of public school students did not have access to home broadband.
Joan Engebretson contributed to this report
