Broadband access is increasingly needed for participating in school and...
Broadband access is increasingly needed for participating in school and in the economy, Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen told reporters Tuesday during a press conference announcing an expansion of Comcast’s Internet Essentials program. He pointed to a recent Pew…
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Internet & American Life Project report that said nearly 80 percent of students are asked to access and download assignments, while in some low-income areas Comcast serves, fewer than 20 percent of households buy broadband. Internet Essentials provides low-cost broadband connections to low-income families with school-aged children. Beginning in April, families who home-school their children or send them to parochial or private schools but would otherwise qualify will be eligible for Internet Essentials, Cohen said. Comcast is also giving out pre-paid “Internet Essentials Opportunity Cards” that Comcast’s nonprofit and school-district partners can distribute to eligible families to help them pay for the service for up to a year. But even though broadband service is increasingly necessary, it shouldn’t be regulated, Cohen said. “The surest way to kill broadband is to regulate it,” he said. “You don’t need regulation to stimulate broader and more investment by broadband providers,” he said. He said broadband access is available in 99 percent of Comcast’s footprint and programs like Internet Essentials can help “move the needle” on adoption. “We can share a goal, and I absolutely welcome the public interest groups’ passion for universal adoption,” he said. “But this would not be a place where regulation would be particularly helpful -- in fact I think it would be particularly harmful.” Comcast said it has signed up more than 150,000 homes through the program.