Comcast Will Double Speed, Expand Pool of Eligible Customers for Internet Essentials Service
Comcast said it will expand the pool of customers eligible for its discount broadband program to households that have a school-age student receiving a free or reduced school lunch. And Comcast said it will double the download speed it offers for the Internet Essentials service to 3 Mbps. Those were among the changes Comcast said it plans to make to the program after five months operating it. Other changes include working to drop the price of the subsidized computers it offers, increase its efforts to market the program through local partners and print more digital literacy material to distribute, said Comcast Executive Vice President David Cohen during a call with reporters.
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The Internet Essentials product was codified in the FCC’s approval of the Comcast’s takeover of NBCUniversal, but Comcast was already years into development of Internet Essentials and would have introduced it anyway, Cohen said. “It’s something we would have done with or without the transaction,” he said. “We have executed Internet Essentials beyond what was in the FCC order and the enhancements we announced today go far beyond the commitments we made,” he said. Additionally, Comcast will make it easier for students at schools where every student is eligible for a free lunch to apply to Internet Essentials, he said. Students at so called “provision 2” schools will automatically be approved for the program, he said.
Since it began selling the $10 monthly Internet service, Comcast has signed up about 41,000 families to the service, it said (http://xrl.us/bmqc2x). Among those households, it has distributed about 5,500 discounted computers that it offers for $150. Comcast had expected higher demand for the cheap machines, but it hasn’t yet materialized, Cohen said. The bulk of the families who signed up but did not buy a new computer through the program said they already had one that worked, according to a survey Comcast conducted as part of the program.
The program has also revealed that lack of “digital literacy” or an understanding of the value of broadband is the main hurdle to signing up more Internet Essentials customers, Cohen said. “The biggest impediment by a mile and a half is digital literacy,” he said. “This population does not understand the value and importance of access to the Internet.”
Cohen said Comcast shared the initial results of the program last week with FCC officials, who are hard at work on introducing the “Connect to Compete” plan to increase broadband deployment among the poor. Though Comcast has learned a lot in the five months since it began operating its Essentials program, he said his best advice for the FCC and other cable operators working with the commission on Connect to Compete is to remain focused on the initial goals. “They're running 100 miles an hour trying to launch an incredibly ambitious program and the last thing they need is someone throwing a monkey wrench in the process,” he said.
Cohen said he expects other ISPs may decide to join the program after seeing Comcast’s experience with Internet Essentials. “There isn’t any reason why anyone who is in the high-speed data business could not adopt this program,” he said. “The business people at the telcos are my friends and I am hoping they'll look at this report and say ‘it’s not going to overrun the business, and there’s no downside to participating in a program like this.'”