The coronavirus pandemic is affecting pretty much everything. With schools closing and more employees forced to work from home, cable services are stepping up to help.
According to Variety, Comcast is expanding its broadband service for low-income families starting Monday (Mar. 16). The cable provider will increase speeds and give free access for 60 days.
Comcast will provide these new features through the Internet Essentials program. Through the program, low-income families can sign up as new customers to receive free internet. Additionally, a faster Mbps will become the new standard speed.
Normally, the service costs $9.95 per month for qualified households.
“Our hope is that broader access and faster speeds will help all of our Internet Essentials customers more easily work from home, access educational resources, obtain important government health care alerts, and stay in contact with their families during this difficult time,” Dana Strong, Comcast Cable’s president of consumer services, said in a statement.
To qualify for Comcast’s Internet Essentials service, customers must be eligible for public-assistance programs. Those programs include the National School Lunch Program, Housing Assistance, Medicaid, SNAP, or SSI.
If you’re in need of this assistance, visit internetessentials.com to enroll in the program. You can also call (855) 846-8376 for English or (855) 765-6995 for Spanish.