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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Verizon is one of numerous home-Internet providers offering temporarily free service to low-income households during the pandemic. But a big restriction on Verizon's offer makes it impossible for many people to get the deal.
The Verizon problem is one of several that's been pointed out by advocates for poor people at the nonprofit National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA). Charter, CenturyLink, and Frontier have also been labeled disappointments even as Comcast earned praise. The NDIA is maintaining a list of pandemic-related telecom offers. A similar group called EveryoneOn offers a search tool to find low-income offers by ZIP code.
Verizon on March 23 said it would provide two months of free home-Internet and phone service for current low-income subscribers in the Lifeline program and $20 monthly discounts for new low-income subscribers. The $20 discount lowers the starting price for 200Mbps Internet to $19.99 a month. But the broadband offers are available only on Verizon's fiber-to-the-home FiOS service and not in DSL areas where Verizon never upgraded homes from copper to fiber.
When contacted by Ars, Verizon said "our DSL service does not meet the Lifeline program qualification standard," referring to the 10Mbps to 20Mbps speed standards imposed by the FCC's Lifeline program, which reimburses ISPs for discounts provided to low-income people.
But while the 60 days of free service applies to existing Lifeline customers, the $20 discounts for new FiOS customers apparently apply to low-income subscribers even if they're not officially using Lifeline plans.
"We do appreciate that Verizon has a discount offer," NDIA Executive Director Angela Siefer told Ars. "The discount offer is using Lifeline to verify eligibility, but [Verizon has] confirmed with us that it is not Lifeline, so why limit where the discount is available? Plus, Lifeline's qualification standards allow for service to be provided at less than the [speed] standard if that is all that is available. By not including DSL, their most vulnerable customers are being left out of a valuable resource. This includes the low-income communities in underserved cities such as Buffalo and Baltimore."
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @04:30AM (6 children)
from tfa, "...where Verizon never upgraded homes from copper to fiber."
Wouldn't this be more correct to say, ...where Verizon hasn't yet upgraded homes from copper to fiber.
Verizon is putting fiber in my neighborhood now. Looking forward to having some competition with Spectrum in the months ahead.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Booga1 on Wednesday April 08 2020, @05:27AM (5 children)
That might be great for your neighborhood, but obviously they've left a lot of people in the dark ages of the internet. It's pretty typical and not just Verizon that does this. The ISP groups all push for the most money they can get.
Rich and dense neighborhoods get upgrade after upgrade. Poor ones and rural ones get nothing, sometimes not even basic maintenance. The worst part is that the US has put forward multiple programs where we've paid the ISPs millions upon millions to upgrade rural areas. They take the money, but they never deliver the promised services.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by deimtee on Wednesday April 08 2020, @08:24AM (2 children)
That has to be the fault of the government offering the money. It can't be that hard to specify "connect X% of the households in this area to fiber/cable/DSL of at least this specification before you get the money."
Or better yet, leave it open for that much vaunted competition, "The first company to connect X% of households gets the money"
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday April 08 2020, @03:06PM
Now, now, you're proposing sensible solutions to problems. Gubbermint doesn't want any of that kind of nonsense. How they gonna keep their pork barrels greased, if they start acting sensibly?
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Wednesday April 08 2020, @06:35PM
There is a reason why all these ex-government regulators end up as board members.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 08 2020, @04:22PM (1 child)
A fiber upgrade doesn't magically mean good service or reasonable prices. These ISPs can still screw everything up even with the fiber in the ground.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday April 08 2020, @11:27PM
Interestingly, when I went from ADSL to NBN (mostly fibre, like "mostly harmless") speeds got a little better (mostly fibre), limits disappeared and the price got a little lower - with the same ISP.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.