Comcast Introduces ‘Internet Essentials’ Package for Low-Income Families

Comcast, home to some of the most caring and thoughtful executives around, today announced an “Internet Essentials” plan that aims to get the Internet into the hands of all low-income American families. At a mere $9.95 USD / mo, the cost of the package should be much easier to handle than Comcast’s other offerings, which start off at around $40.

Of course, I kid about the ‘caring’ and ‘thoughtful’ executives at Comcast being behind this, because it was in fact a stipulation that Comcast had to agree to in order to acquire NBC Universal earlier this year. Regardless of the reasons behind the move, however, it should provide low-income families access to something that most of us have begun to take for granted. For families with children in school or soon to attend, this easier access is without question, important. For non-educational purposes, it’s nice as well, for obvious reasons.

The plan isn’t high-end as one would expect, offering 1.5Mbit/s download and 384Kbit/s upload – slow by most standards, but still sufficient for regular browsing. Downloading games and other things could prove tedious on such a connection, however, so for that reason I wish Comcast offered a second-tier with beefier specs at around $15 or $20.

In order to qualify for the Internet Essentials package, you must actually be in a low-income family, verified by the government if one of your children is signed up for the National School Lunch Program. In addition, families cannot have had a Comcast subscription up to 90 days prior to applying, or have overdue bills or unreturned equipment. Fair enough.