Comcast pledges unlimited internet data on low-income plan, a win for U.S. students
This story is part of Fresno’s Digital Divide, a series of stories written by The Fresno Bee’s Education Lab that explore how internet access is affecting education equity in the San Joaquin Valley. Support important, locally-produced journalism such as this: Donate to the community-funded Education Lab.
For the second time this week, Comcast has announced major changes to a program providing internet for low-income families across the nation that at least one expert said could be a game-changer for students struggling to learn from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
On Tuesday, Comcast said it would double broadband speeds for customers on its $10 per month Internet Essentials program, which they said would help address connectivity issues for low-income customers around the country.
Eduardo Gonzalez is the interim director at Fresno State’s Office of Community and Economic Development.
In a recent interview this week with The Fresno Bee’s Education Lab, Gonzalez said faster speeds were a good first step but also said internet providers should also significantly increase the amount of data available to low-income customers. Without more data, Gonzalez noted, low-income families would face significant overage fees each time they went over their monthly limit.
Shortly after The Bee published its story Thursday morning, Comcast said they would provide low-income customers on its Internet Essentials program with unlimited monthly data for the rest of 2021, a decision Gonzalez applauded.
“I’m impressed to learn that the company’s policy now includes unlimited data usage during 2021,” Gonzalez said. “It is the right step in helping close the digital equity issue.”
Gonzalez is part of a research partnership between Fresno State, Chico State, Fresno County Office of Education, and The San Joaquin Valley Regional Broadband Consortia working on a project to map internet availability across California.
Joan Hammel, Comcast’s senior director of external communications, said the program’s cost would remain $9.95 per month. Hammel said the unlimited data was effective immediately and would be reflected on plans during the next billing cycle.
“What we want to try to showcase is this is the continuation of a whole array of ways that we’ve responded to low-income families impacted by the pandemic,” Hammel told the Ed Lab.
The changes should help Fresno families with children stuck learning from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Many households have reported connectivity issues that make distance learning even more challenging.
Educators have said that the nearly year-long pandemic exacerbated the so-called “homework gap” between students who have the internet connectivity needed to complete schoolwork and those who don’t. Researchers have said the problem is more pronounced in Latinx, Black, and lower-income homes.
On Thursday, Fresno parent Nicole Grijalva said she was “overjoyed” to learn about the changes to Comcast’s internet service program.
“I think that it is great, and it will be a huge stress relief on a lot of families,” Grijalva told The Bee. “This is just one of the issues some parents have to face during the school closures. I’m glad they’re stepping up to help.”
The change also was a significant departure from comments Hammel made in late January in a separate interview with the Ed Lab. During that first interview, Hammel defended the data available through the low-income program at the time, calling it “an enormous amount of data.”
On Thursday, Hammel said that Comcast was supposed to announce the data upgrades earlier this week when it rolled out plans to double broadband speeds. Hammel said the company inadvertently left out the information about the data upgrades in its news release published Tuesday.
“But it is absolutely the policy, and it is an official part of the program,” Hammel said.
How Education Lab’s reporting led to change
To report this story, The Fresno Bee’s Education Lab first gathered information from the general public through an online survey that received about 40 responses.
The survey gleaned input from residents about their connectivity issues, especially for young people and students stuck at home learning online during the coronavirus pandemic.
Based in part on the survey results, the Ed Lab’s engagement reporter hosted two community listening sessions. Those sessions allowed residents to share more about their specific struggles with reliable online connectivity.
The reporter also conducted more than a dozen interviews with parents, community organizations, researchers, experts, and internet service providers.
The reporter examined internet bills from community members that detailed how their internet plans were plagued with slow speeds and monthly data limits that drove up the cost of their low-cost internet service, sometimes by nearly $100 per month.
After about two weeks of investigation and reporting, Comcast officials twice this week contacted The Bee’s engagement reporter to announce major changes to its low-cost Internet Essentials program.
First, the company said it would double broadband speeds for those lower-income customers.
We published the first story on Thursday morning, outlining the good news about the better speeds. However, the story also noted the larger - and more expensive - challenge of monthly data limits and hefty overage fees remained a significant barrier for school students struggling to overcome the so-called “homework gap.”
Just hours after our story was published on Thursday, a Comcast official informed The Bee the company would offer unlimited monthly data to the low-cost plan. The official said the company had mistakenly left out information about the unlimited data in its earlier announcement.
The Education Lab is a local journalism initiative that highlights education issues critical to the advancement of the San Joaquin Valley. It is funded by donors. Read more from The Bee’s Education Lab here.
This story was originally published February 5, 2021 at 5:00 AM.