Comcast Agents Mistakenly Reject Some Poor People Who Qualify for Free Internet (arstechnica.com) 42
People with low incomes can get free Internet service through Comcast and a government program, but signing up is sometimes harder than it should be because of confusion within Comcast's customer service department. From a report: Massachusetts resident Tonia Williams qualified for the US government's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides $30 monthly discounts, and for Comcast's Internet Essentials Plus, a $30 monthly service for low-income people that is essentially free when combined with the ACP discount. But when she tried to use the ACP discount with Comcast's low-income service, Comcast incorrectly told her she wasn't eligible because she was already a Comcast customer.
Williams, a certified nursing assistant who was not working when she spoke to Ars, was eventually able to get free home Internet service for her family. But she faced several hassles and said she would have given up if it hadn't been for David Isenberg, a Falmouth resident who's been helping low-income people in his town navigate the process. Isenberg knew Williams because she was previously a home health aide taking care of Isenberg's wife's uncle. "I would have given up if it wasn't for David pushing me," Williams told Ars in a phone interview in November. "It's such a run-around, and you have to sit and wait on hold. A lot of people don't have time to sit on the phone for that long and then be told, 'Well, you don't qualify.' If you don't really know what the service is or how to get it, I would have just believed them, that I didn't qualify."
Williams, a certified nursing assistant who was not working when she spoke to Ars, was eventually able to get free home Internet service for her family. But she faced several hassles and said she would have given up if it hadn't been for David Isenberg, a Falmouth resident who's been helping low-income people in his town navigate the process. Isenberg knew Williams because she was previously a home health aide taking care of Isenberg's wife's uncle. "I would have given up if it wasn't for David pushing me," Williams told Ars in a phone interview in November. "It's such a run-around, and you have to sit and wait on hold. A lot of people don't have time to sit on the phone for that long and then be told, 'Well, you don't qualify.' If you don't really know what the service is or how to get it, I would have just believed them, that I didn't qualify."
and do they try to push the rented cable modem on (Score:3)
and do they try to push the rented cable modem on them as well?
Hard to believe (Score:5, Funny)
I find it very hard to believe that a company with as stellar a customer service reputation as Comcast would do something like this.
Re:Hard to believe (Score:4, Interesting)
Preventing people from becoming Comcast customers is the very best customer service the company can provide, obviously.
Entire thing's just another Corporate hand-out ... (Score:2)
Anyone else notice that all the major broadband providers recently did another rate increase, by just about the same amount as the ACP monthly stipend/discount?
YMMV (Score:2)
As a long time Comcast internet subscriber, I had the opposite experience. I'd been paying them for Internet for a decade, but they sent me emails nagging me to get it free, and the process was super easy and quick.
That's how these things generally go: very easy if it goes to plan, or very complicated if you're an edge case in some way or unlucky.
With Comcast, a rule of thumb is that if you end up on the phone you've taken a very wrong turn somewhere. Normally you can do everything on their website yourself
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
it's... (Score:1)
... COMCASTIC!
Makes me pine for the days when I had a good, reliable 300 bps modem. Slow, but rock-solid connections [until someone picked up an extension phone of course].
--
All kidding aside, for some^H^H^H^Hmost things TCP and some things UDP, a rock-solid 1Mbps or even 256Kbps connection is better than a high-jitter/high-packet-drop 100Mbps connection.
Hmm (Score:2)
I'm sure comcast mistakenly filed the tax credit and reimbursement paperwork too.
Slashdot is becoming Ars Technica light (Score:3)
Less than 50 % I think.
Up your bloody game.
Re: (Score:2)
How many of recent Slashdot stories did not first appear on Ars Technica ?
Less than 50 % I think.
Up your bloody game.
So basically you're telling us Ars is using /. in a vain attempt to boost their readership.
It's a good thing no-one on here reads the articles.
Such the wrong solution (Score:4, Interesting)
2) we need to quit paying these companies when in the city location. Pay to put in community owned fiber, and they are free, or low-costs to connect to local schools, business, etc.
Re:Such the wrong solution (Score:4, Insightful)
This 100%
It's going to be 2023, not 1994. Internet access is a utility, right there with electricity, water and sewage, it's just as necessary a service for a household and should be treated as such.
Re: (Score:2)
Alright then, so just like houses that are too far from the utilities use a water well and a septic tank, ISPs will need to deliver daily tape backups of the internet to each client which will need to have a server installed in the house.
Re: (Score:1)
Fuck off you stupid Russian shill.
Re: (Score:1)
minimum wage should be a living wage.
I disagree. I believe that high school students should be allowed to have summer jobs.
I believe that just because an economic activity isn't valuable enough to pay for all of a person's living expenses doesn't mean it should be banned.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop using high school students as the example for minimum wage as those are a different thing, you may have heard of "part time jobs" maybe.
Someone, anyone really, working a full 40 hours a week should be able to afford to live decently close to where they are employed, whether you are a lawyer or the janitor working for the lawyer.
Re: (Score:2)
1) minimum wage should be a living wage. We need to quit subsidizing businesses.
Depending on the job an employer may not be able to afford to pay a living wage, meaning no job.
A better principal is someone earning minimum wage should be able to afford to enjoy a basic living, whether that be through a UBI or other government programs. Maybe this wasn't a bad thing [foxbusiness.com].
2) we need to quit paying these companies when in the city location. Pay to put in community owned fiber, and they are free, or low-costs to connect to local schools, business, etc.
Private utilities aren't unusual, and Internet service is a lot more diverse than other utilities so I think it should remain private.
But I don't mind the fibre being publicly owned, or even some kind of forced leasing to com [www.cbc.ca]
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on the job an employer may not be able to afford to pay a living wage, meaning no job.
Far better that they automate it than for us to continue to subsidize the business.
Private utilities aren't unusual, and Internet service is a lot more diverse than other utilities so I think it should remain private.
There is nothing wrong with private utilities. If a fiber installer wants to go into an area, let them.
What is FOOLISH is that we are funding these companies to install into these poor areas and we will then have to continue funding them, while the utilty will make up all sorts of numbers. If the government is going to do ANY 'subsidy', then FIX the problem once and for all. For this condition, it means putting in fiber
Re: (Score:2)
Depending on the job an employer may not be able to afford to pay a living wage, meaning no job.
Far better that they automate it than for us to continue to subsidize the business.
It's not subsidizing the business, it's subsidizing people.
The business still needs to find employees, if they don't pay enough they won't have staff regardless of what other government programs are out there to help those employees.
Private utilities aren't unusual, and Internet service is a lot more diverse than other utilities so I think it should remain private.
There is nothing wrong with private utilities. If a fiber installer wants to go into an area, let them.
What is FOOLISH is that we are funding these companies to install into these poor areas and we will then have to continue funding them, while the utilty will make up all sorts of numbers. If the government is going to do ANY 'subsidy', then FIX the problem once and for all. For this condition, it means putting in fiber as a locally owned utility (i.e. by the home owners there), and have their monthly payment support a contract system admin company to manage it. It will simply be a local intranet, with local connections and then for voice, video, internet, etc services, have them connect at the C.O. and then compete to deliver better, cheap service.
IOW, minimize the monopoly (just the fiber and talking to locals), and then all else is competitive.
There's some places that call pull that off, but I don't think many municipalities should be in the business of running an ISP. The problem isn't laying in the fibre, it's all the switches and networking to run it.
Re: Such the wrong solution (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Cool,
So...how do we make your dreams a reality?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Oh, American minimum wage is a living wage somewhere, maybe not in America. However before coming up with asinine ideas like this (there are plenty of jobs that people want to do and that do not pay minimum wage simply because at minimum wage these jobs wouldn't exist), how about making sure that the government doesn't destroy the value of money first?
So how about forcing the government to live within its means, not to borrow and not to print money that it cannot collect in taxes to subsidize everyone, who
Re: (Score:2)
Now, the GD goon squad is joining with the GOP in wanting to continue spending, only on Domestic issues, not national security.
The ONLY fucking way to stop this is get rid of all this nightmare is to NOT allow politicians to manipulate things:
1) get rid of all tax breaks, exemptions, write-offs, etc.
2) sum up all money/bonus/etc that
Re: (Score:1)
None of what you said has anything to do with the government not destroying the *value* of money.
What do tax breaks and write-offs have to do with *value* of money?
What do taxes have to do with the *value* of money?
Your only solution is to take away more money from people, but it has nothing to do with the government actually living within its means and not growing and not increasing its spending that cannot be backed by any economic activity, thus necessitating the government to use the Fed as the money pr
Re: (Score:2)
Government printing money to make up deficit/debt is what is causing the destruction. The GOP have ran up massive amounts of deficit/debt by simply hiding all of their massive tax breaks/write-offs/etc. The dems have ran up spending, but in general, they are accounting-ish for funding it. Still, they have plenty of bills that have short lives with no funding, so they also printed extra $.
Remove CONgress's ability to create hidden 'spending' (such as tax cuts/breaks/write-offs/etc), and tax everything t
Re: (Score:1)
So you agree that government printing money is what is causing the value of money to drop or not, I don't fully understand your comment given the 'BS' in front of it, who knows what you are saying?
GOP or not GOP, it doesn't matter to me one way or another. Anything that government spends increases inflation because it spends beyond the means of the economy to support the spending.
I say get rid of most of government spending at all and get rid of most of the taxes, I don't understand this desire to take mon
Re: (Score:2)
Wait, isn't a company having to pay someone minimum wage, the company subsidizing society's fault? Any wage requirement to live is due to society's failure to ensure affordable housing and employment opportunities. If a company is having to pay a salary above that user's market value, it's society's fault. Why should the one person willing to give somebody a job have to pay for something that is essentially YOUR fault?
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know what the rules are for cable, but for phone/DSL service the ISP's responsibility ends when the line goes into the house. If your signal is good there, and you're still having connection difficulties, tracking them down is your responsibility, not theirs. If that's also true for cable, and I suspect that it is, whoever came out did exactly what they're supposed to do.
Confusion or intent -- ? (Score:2)
confusion within Comcast's customer service department
Confusion, or an unwritten Comcast policy to keep the poors from hogging bandwidth from paying customers?
Re: (Score:1)
confusion within Comcast's customer service department
Wait, Comcast has a customer service department? Who knew?
you don't have time? (Score:2)
"It's such a run-around, and you have to sit and wait on hold. A lot of people don't have time to sit on the phone for that long "
Right, because if you're unemployed you have a super full agenda of stuff to do?