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The Internet Communications United States

Low-Wage Earners To Get High-Speed Internet For $30 in Biden Program (washingtonpost.com) 226

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
echo123 writes: Twenty Internet providers, including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, have agreed to provide high-speed service at a steep discount to low-income consumers, the White House announced Monday, significantly expanding broadband access for millions of Americans. The plan, a feature of the $1 trillion infrastructure package passed by Congress last year, would cost qualifying households no more than $30 per month. The discounts plus existing federal Internet subsidies mean the government will cover the full cost of connectivity if consumers sign on with one of the 20 participating companies. The White House estimates the program will cover 48 million households, or 40 percent of the country.

The 100-megabit-per-second service is fast enough for a family to work from home, complete schoolwork, browse the Internet and stream high-definition movies and TV shows, the White House said. Households can qualify for the subsidies, called the Affordable Connectivity Program, if their income is at or below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines, a member of the household participates in certain federal anti-poverty initiatives -- including Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, federal housing assistance, Pell Grant tuition assistance, or free or reduced-price school meals -- or if the household already qualifies for an Internet provider's low-income service program. Consumers can check whether they qualify for discounted service at getinternet.gov.
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Low-Wage Earners To Get High-Speed Internet For $30 in Biden Program More

Low-Wage Earners To Get High-Speed Internet For $30 in Biden Program

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  • why not just (Score:3)

    by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Monday May 09, 2022 @03:28PM (#62517436)

    raise their wage or reduce their taxes (if they pay any, but taxes could even be negative) and let them chose their Internet?

    Or was Biden able to negotiate better deals with the ISPs?

    • Re:why not just (Score:4, Informative)

      by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Monday May 09, 2022 @03:41PM (#62517474) Homepage Journal

      > Or was Biden able to negotiate better deals with the ISPs?

      None of the mentioned providers have a 100Mbps package for $30, so yes.

      To bad there's no cable or fiber to many of the rural/low-income locations.

      PS yet another paywall article.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by leonbev ( 111395 )

        What are you talking about? Comcast has been offering an Internet Essentials 100Mbit offering for less than $30 for years now.

        It used to be $10, but with this initiative, it's basically free now.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dgatwood ( 11270 )

          What are you talking about? Comcast has been offering an Internet Essentials 100Mbit offering for less than $30 for years now.

          It used to be $10, but with this initiative, it's basically free now.

          Don't worry. Once Comcast is on the dole, they'll raise the price so that the poor pay $30, but they take the extra money that the government is handing them on top of that.

    • We don't have a Negative Income Tax but would be a good idea but good luck getting congress to approve that. I doubt Republicans would support it even though it was Milton Friedman's preferred method of redistribution.

      Are you in the US? Most places we don't get to "choose" our internet, we have one or maybe two actually viable options (and usually a shit tier "option" that's really not an option)

      • even though it was Milton Friedman's preferred method of redistribution.

        It was his preferred form of redistribution if welfare was assumed to be inevitable and if it replaced other forms of welfare simultaneously. Everyone I've heard hasn't been talking about eliminating existing welfare programs, so this is a fundamentally insincere argument.

      • We don't have a Negative Income Tax but would be a good idea but good luck getting congress to approve that. I doubt Republicans would support it even though it was Milton Friedman's preferred method of redistribution.

        Roughly half of the US already pays no net federal taxes.

        And out of those a large number, with the child tax credits, get more in refunds than they might "pay" in.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • The best way to solve the amount of waste is to go after Wal-Mart and companies like them. It would reduce the number of people on this program to a smaller core group that still needs it. And remember, even when you fix Wal-Mart's issues now, Social Security payments for Wal-Mart's retirees are going to be based on those low wages too. It would take decades for that to completely fade away.

          • Lives in poverty, meaning what? Starving? Without adequate shelter and clothing? I think not. "Poverty" is a moving target. I believe you should have guaranteed health care, and enough calories and shelter to survive, that's it. We've almost got that now, though some work is needed on healthcare. Want anything more then work for it or get lucky, them's the breaks.
            • Healthcare Insurance is free on the exchanges, but Insurance is not Healthcare. I cannot afford healthcare, and I do not currently qualify as being in poverty. The minimum health care guarantee is that you will not die of an emergency, that does not mean you will not be saddled with debt while in poverty creating yet another hurdle to escaping poverty.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by mpercy ( 1085347 )

            Essentially the same portion of the country "lives in poverty" as they did when the Great Society programs started...by that metric all those welfare programs have failed.

            Instead, what we have is continual redefinition of "poverty" upward such that it now means living a lifestyle that most consider lower-middle-class. If you define poverty as the lowest 10% of income, there will *always* be a lower 10%.

            And further, when calculating "poverty" income, the numbers exclude all the government programs. After add

        • Roughly half of the US already pays no net federal taxes.

          This is a stupid fucking statistic.
          Roughly half of the US works, period.
          The vast majority of those, are retired or children.

          And out of those a large number, with the child tax credits, get more in refunds than they might "pay" in.

          No. Some absolutely do, no doubt about it.
          The CTC wipes off at most $3600 per child of tax. For a married couple with a single child, this means a combined income of ~35k in order to break even, which is less than the lowest state median income in the country.
          So while these people certainly exist, your Welfare Queen trope is weak.

          Your talking points need updating.

    • Biden was no doubt able to negotiate better deals. Comcast has had low cost internet for low income households for some time. I have little doubt these companies managed to shake the government down for money but if one of them was already doing it for like $10/mo then they all could do it.

      This whole thing is a win for the ISPs and the low income subscribers. Since the government is involved it won’t seem weird to ask for proof of income, and now they can service a small untapped market without hav

      • What Biden negotiated here isn't the low cost internet, it's actually getting it. Those "$10/mo" packages come with so many asterisks you'd think they were from Gaul.

        Yeah, the cable companies are still doing great at $30/mo. Internet is cheap. We only pay a lot for it because, well, the free market can charge whatever people can afford to pay, so unless you make it a public utility you're gonna get soaked.

    • Rs: "RAH FREE MARKET!!!!"
      Biden: "Let's make sure people have better access to information"
      Rs: "NO NOT LIKE THAT!!!"

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • So this is what's happened - Biden's gone to the industry and said "Look guys, these people can't afford your services any way, and you currently charge 3-6X what it costs to provide the service

        Do you know anything about this or just like to talk?

        This is an expansion of the Emergency Broadband Benefit from COVID times, signed under President Trump. It's basically just a modernized Internet extension to the Lifeline program. This new program was in a bill passed LAST YEAR. The older EBB program expired on March 1, so they're about 2 months late announcing participating provdiers.

        The current administration is doing a good thing by passing this, but the only agreement or negotiation here is that

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • like most means tested programs in America these are for people so poor they pay little or no federal income tax (outside of Medicare and Social security, and we can't lower those because we'd need to lift the cap that protects high income earners and we sure as hell aren't gonna do that). They're not usually paying a lot of State income taxes either (outside of Arizona, which kinda screws the poor on income tax, again for the same reason we don't lift that cap on SSI taxes).

      As for raising wages, Presid

    • raise their wage or reduce their taxes (if they pay any, but taxes could even be negative) and let them chose their Internet?

      Their taxes are negative. The standard deductions reduce their tax to nothing, and EITC plus other credits mean the tax system pays them.

      • The standard deduction reduces a tiny amount of taxpayers taxable income to zero.

        The reason for that, is because it's fucking $10k per filer. People generally make more than $10k here in the US. By quite a bit.

    • Do you really think that if you just give $30 a month outright to people with low incomes, they'll use it to buy better internet service?

      The inner city charity I volunteer with, recently came across a woman who didn't have a refrigerator and couldn't afford to buy one. So we found one and gave it to her, free of charge. She immediately sold it to get some cash.

      There are some people who are poor because of bad luck. But most (in the US) are poor because they make poor spending choices, or have poor work habi

  • Cost = ~€33/monthly including 21% value-added taxes (which are refundable for a business). And I would not qualify for any low-income subsidies.

    p.s. I also pay less than €10 per year on cellphone costs given the call payment structure in the EU, and I manage an Asterisk server for €25/annually (okay that adds to the costs, but still). For PSTN termination I use this chart to pre-pay for VoIP service [voipkredi.com].

  • How do those companies verify you qualify for low income? Seems like it would need information I wouldn't want to share with those people.

    • One way to get in is to have school children already qualifying for the free meal at school program. Others exist also, but I can't recall them.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by leonbev ( 111395 )

        That doesn't really work anymore, though, because basically everyone has qualified for free school lunches in the US since the start of COVID.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by eepok ( 545733 )

      Generally speaking, it's via verification of enrollment in some level of public assistance program. SNAP/EBT, WIC, HUD rent assistance, etc. Every company that offers a similar benefit sets up their own qualifications.

      When doing something for college students, the most common go-to is being a Pell Grant recipient.

    • How do those companies verify you qualify for low income?

      As the people saying you're low-income aka the government.

    • Very similar to what most of these same people did to get into the Lifeline program or the Emergency Broadband Benefit during COVID.

  • "The government will cover the full cost" (Score:4, Insightful)

    by erp_consultant ( 2614861 ) on Monday May 09, 2022 @04:04PM (#62517566)

    Correction - the middle class tax payer will cover the cost. That's where the money really comes from. The government takes the money from us and redistributes it to the causes they deem worthy - minus a bunch of graft, waste and inefficiency.

    The internet companies enjoy some good PR for stepping up to help out the "poor". Why would they do this knowing that the poor are not their customers? Well, the PR is one thing. Plus it won't cost them a dime. Any shortfall will be covered in full by the government, err I mean the middle class taxpayer.

    Similarly, the government enjoys some good PR. At the same time they get to pay back the internet companies for their campaign contributions. Naturally they will use money taken from the middle class taxpayer to do so.

    So who gets left holding the bag? The middle class taxpayer of course. Same as it always is. In typical leftist fashion failure is rewarded and success is punished. Meanwhile rural households have been waiting for a generation for even usable internet speeds, never mind high speed.

    "The 100-megabit-per-second service is fast enough for a family to work from home, complete schoolwork, browse the Internet and stream high-definition movies and TV shows, the White House said. Households can qualify for the subsidies, called the Affordable Connectivity Program, if their income is at or below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines, a member of the household participates in certain federal anti-poverty initiatives -- including Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, federal housing assistance, Pell Grant tuition assistance, or free or reduced-price school meals -- or if the household already qualifies for an Internet provider's low-income service program. "

    Well that's comforting. They will be able to stream Netflix until their hearts are content. Maybe we should just throw in a six pack and a carton of smokes while we're at it? Maybe some Doritios too?

    Where in this scheme is there anything addressing the cause of the poverty in the first place? You know those pesky little things like fatherless homes, shitty schools, drug and alcohol abuse that liberals never seem to want to address? Anyone that mentions that will immediately be branded an insensitive racist or if it's a black person simply an Uncle Tom. And their social media accounts will be blocked.

    Instead let's just come up with yet another giveaway program to placate the masses and sweep the whole thing under the rug.

    • Where in this scheme is there anything addressing the cause of the poverty in the first place?

      What makes you think they want to address poverty? They want control over your life. They want people dependent on the government so you can't complain when the government does something abusive.

      Poverty is a feature, not a bug. It will NOT be fixed.

  • Or the government could do it (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oh_my_080980980 ( 773867 ) on Monday May 09, 2022 @04:33PM (#62517676)
    Instead of giving more money in corporate subsidies, it would be far cheaper for the government to roll out broadband. Corporations have shown they can't provide broadband without massive subsidies on top of the massive subsidies the government already provided to bring broadband to your door step. Verizon had reneged on numerous agreements it has had with state governments to do just that.

    It would be far more cost effective and save money in the long run for the Fed to take over the infrastructure side of the internet. Besides, isn't the good and services that corporations go on about where the real profit is...

    • Instead of giving more money in corporate subsidies, it would be far cheaper for the government to roll out broadband.

      That might be a good argument for the backbone, which actually was DoD-backed before public institutions and then telecoms got involved.

      But we're talking about last-mile. We already went through this with copper buildout and even with the amount of waste there was, the job mostly got done and America got wired for telephone service. This would be like having the federal government plan the streets in your hometown instead of the highways and Interstates.

  • I'm sorry, you're not a Pell grant recipient in a low income neighborhood? Too bad, no affordable broadband for you!

  • ... that I'm a high wage earner. I wouldn't be too happy with that kind of price increase.

  • R&D alike love monopolies, that's where the best campaign funds come from.
    Vote out the monopolists and start forcing the ISPs to share infrastructure, let AT&T use Frontier's fiber network and vice-versa.

    • The 1990's called, they want their talking point. There are no "ISP's" anymore in the classic sense. The wires are the only thing of value, splitting them up among a bunch of different assholes to charge you for them is pointless.

      • It would create more competition, say after a 10 year monopoly on the investment it would be required to allow other providers access to the infrastructure. Oh and I have two fiber drops from two different Internet providers on my street. I don't like either of them but I'm using the one that has the best performance and rate.
        That's called choice and if you live in an apartment building or condo you may not be able to even switch ISPs. That needs to change in the law as well.

  • Murricans should rather think about something else. Its 2022 and a crap 100mbps connection needs to be subsidized to go for $30?? TF, I pay â15/m on the free market and can get 250mbps for â25 if I wouldnâ(TM)t be too lazy to ask â¦
    • Lots of Americans can get better deals and better speeds than that. What's your point? And the drive for "muh mbps" is silly. Most people are fine on 30Mbps, and few need more than 50Mbps.

  • does it come forced hardware rent fees (some ISP's) and (caps?)

  • I know a family who gets Cox "up to 100Mbps" for $10 because they're on a free school lunch program. Their uplink is 3Mbps. They might get that speed when their neighbors are away at work. In the evenings, they can't even get 1Mbps when the kids would need that connection to do their homework. It's a cruel joke at best.

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