Comcast: More Bits for the Needy

Operator Sees Upside to Expanding Low-Cost Broadband Program

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 2/6/2012 12:01:00 AM

Can Comcast and other cable operators do well by doing good?

The industry is trying to take the lead in connecting poor U.S. families to the broadband Internet — not only as a public-relations gesture, but as a bid to strengthen the country’s future economic prospects.

Last week, Comcast said it connected 41,729 low-income households in the first five months of its $9.95-per-month “Internet Essentials” broadband program, a population representing an estimated 80,000 children and 160,000 Americans.

Now, to spur greater adoption, the operator will expand eligibility requirements for the program, double connection speeds and step up digital literacy efforts.

The goal for 2012 “is to do better,” Comcast executive vice president David Cohen said.

Last week, Cohen told reporters that Internet Essentials was a success so far — even though the operator had no defined goals or expectations for how widely or quickly it would be adopted. “I said, if we reach no one except the people we talked to … I was going to declare victory,” Cohen said. “I know we are making a difference in these people’s lives.”

Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski applauded Comcast’s expanded commitment to broadband adoption among low-income American families.

“I commend Comcast for their strengthened commitment to broadband adoption,” Genachowski said in a statement that likely would never have passed the lips of his predecessor, frequent Comcast critic Kevin Martin. “Having more Americans who are digitally empowered will mean more students able to access the benefits of digital learning, more Americans with the skills needed to find and land the jobs of today and tomorrow, and millions more customers for online businesses.”

Last September, Genachowski also gave kudos to the Philadelphia-based MSO for the Internet Essentials program and challenged other service providers to take similar steps.

The cable industry responded: In November, operators including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Charter Communications and Cablevision Systems announced the “Connect to Compete” broadband-adoption initiative, patterned on Comcast’s Internet Essentials. The program will provide discounted broadband to kids who are enrolled in free school lunch programs starting with the 2012 school year.

Comcast’s Internet Essentials, in the initial phase, was available to low-income families with children who are eligible to receive a free school lunch as part of their enrollment in the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program.

As of the second quarter, the MSO will expand eligibility to include families who qualify for reduced-price school lunches as well, which will make it available to nearly 300,000 additional households in Comcast’s service area. Comcast also will double speeds — to up to 3 Megabits per second downstream and 768 Kilobits per second upstream — to make the service more attractive.

Comcast agreed to offer low-cost broadband to poor families under the FCC’s conditions on the company’s merger with NBCUniversal. However, Cohen said, planning for the initiative predated the NBCU deal by two years, and Comcast offered to implement Internet Essentials voluntarily. “It is something we would have done with or without [the NBCU] transaction,” he said.

FAST FIGURES

Comcast, in the first phase of its Internet Essentials program, from August to December 2011:

Connected 41,729 low-income households, or about 2% of the 2 million eligible families.

Distributed 5,531 computers at less than $150 each, which executives acknowledged was lower than expected.

Publicized the program in more than 4,000 school districts and 30,000- plus schools and generated 750 million unpaid media impressions (seven times a typical Comcast product launch).

SOURCE: Comcast