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Low-Wage Earners To Get High-Speed Internet For $30 in Biden Program

 1 year ago
source link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/22/05/09/191222/low-wage-earners-to-get-high-speed-internet-for-30-in-biden-program?sbsrc=md
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Low-Wage Earners To Get High-Speed Internet For $30 in Biden Program

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echo123 writes: Twenty Internet providers, including AT&T, Comcast and Verizon, have agreed to provide high-speed service at a steep discount to low-income consumers, the White House announced Monday, significantly expanding broadband access for millions of Americans. The plan, a feature of the $1 trillion infrastructure package passed by Congress last year, would cost qualifying households no more than $30 per month. The discounts plus existing federal Internet subsidies mean the government will cover the full cost of connectivity if consumers sign on with one of the 20 participating companies. The White House estimates the program will cover 48 million households, or 40 percent of the country. The 100-megabit-per-second service is fast enough for a family to work from home, complete schoolwork, browse the Internet and stream high-definition movies and TV shows, the White House said. Households can qualify for the subsidies, called the Affordable Connectivity Program, if their income is at or below 200 percent of federal poverty guidelines, a member of the household participates in certain federal anti-poverty initiatives -- including Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, federal housing assistance, Pell Grant tuition assistance, or free or reduced-price school meals -- or if the household already qualifies for an Internet provider's low-income service program. Consumers can check whether they qualify for discounted service at getinternet.gov.

raise their wage or reduce their taxes (if they pay any, but taxes could even be negative) and let them chose their Internet?

Or was Biden able to negotiate better deals with the ISPs?

  • > Or was Biden able to negotiate better deals with the ISPs?

    None of the mentioned providers have a 100Mbps package for $30, so yes.

    To bad there's no cable or fiber to many of the rural/low-income locations.

    PS yet another paywall article.

    • Re:

      What are you talking about? Comcast has been offering an Internet Essentials 100Mbit offering for less than $30 for years now.

      It used to be $10, but with this initiative, it's basically free now.

      • Re:

        Don't worry. Once Comcast is on the dole, they'll raise the price so that the poor pay $30, but they take the extra money that the government is handing them on top of that.

      • Re:

        I don't think that SpaceX has the bandwidth available for a cheaper service tier yet. They've been very selective on who they've been offering service to at this point while they continue to expand the network.

        • Re:

          Yup, gotta build it before giving it away.

        • Re:

          Yes, that's a real challenge. I do know a lot of rural/exurban poor folks though and they mostly either go without, or pay >$100/mo to the ILEC for 256K DSL, the fastest available service. This happens about 5 miles from the city center of >50K population cities.

      • by Kremmy ( 793693 ) on Monday May 09, 2022 @04:19PM (#62517618)

        If Starlink manages to successfully scale...
        The massive constellation will only help if their mesh protocols manage to scale to tens of thousands of nodes.
        It's a one way connection in that you don't get open ports on the internet side. Like you're behind NAT without a router you can tell to allow a port through.
        Most things will work fine but there are certain things that will just not work because of that.
        I'm looking forward to mobile service so I can mount it on a work truck and have that level of broadband anywhere I might be, who knows when they'll actually enable that.
        It's cool that it's working so far, but one thing Musk seems to totally oversell almost to the point of not even being aware of it, is raw scalability. He talks about stacked networks of boring company tunnels as if there is no switching overhead at the end points.
        Network switches are cheaper than vehicle switches, but Starlink is on the worst case edge of a lot of networking quirks, and that's going to bite it in the ass at some point.
        • Agreed. The realities you point out are what caused my excitement for Starlink to be completely snuffed. Dig into the technical details and a few blog reviews and you realize it sucks...bad. Sort of on internet. Certainly not a solution of the likes where reliable streaming and WFH is going to happen.

          • I've been using Starling for WFH for the last 4 months and it works fine.
      • Re:

        It's up to Starlink to participate. If this works anything like the Emergency Broadband Benefit that was available to low income households during COVID, it's really just a voucher that goes toward the total bill. In order to participate, you don't have to make the plan free. It takes $30 off whatever plan you pick. It's just that a lot of these companies are offering a package for exactly that price so that a low income household can take the package without worrying about being able to pay for the res

      • why would we spend a fortune on slow, expensive custom satellite equipment? That would be like replacing School busses with a fleet of Humm Vs and driving each kid in one at a time.
      • Re:

        Starlink won't scale to serve areas with high population density. Even small towns won't be able to have everyone on it.

      • Re:

        It's too bad this administration is so ANTI Elon Musk that they don't actually negotiate for a slower service tier from Starlink

        Starlink has not yet shown that they can provide service widely to rural America, much less to all low-income Americans.. They've been promising service in my area since 2020, and as of today, their website is saying "late 2023". They've reached all of 250,000 users nationwide so far. That's not even 1% of Americans.

        There are municipal broadband systems serving more users than

        • Re:

          It's not his job. It could be argued it's not the federal government's job either, but it's definitely not "owed to us" by a private individual.

          Did Verizon and Comcast donate to make this happen... oh wait

          https://www.nationalreview.com... [nationalreview.com]

        • Probably for the same reasons you decided to not make startups and become a billionaire.

          • Re:

            Well, ya know, not everyone can be a Musk, Gates, or Zuckerberg, starting life off on third base.
  • Re:

    We don't have a Negative Income Tax but would be a good idea but good luck getting congress to approve that. I doubt Republicans would support it even though it was Milton Friedman's preferred method of redistribution.

    Are you in the US? Most places we don't get to "choose" our internet, we have one or maybe two actually viable options (and usually a shit tier "option" that's really not an option)

    • Re:

      It was his preferred form of redistribution if welfare was assumed to be inevitable and if it replaced other forms of welfare simultaneously. Everyone I've heard hasn't been talking about eliminating existing welfare programs, so this is a fundamentally insincere argument.

    • Re:

      We don't have a Negative Income Tax but would be a good idea but good luck getting congress to approve that. I doubt Republicans would support it even though it was Milton Friedman's preferred method of redistribution.

      Roughly half of the US already pays no net federal taxes.

      And out of those a large number, with the child tax credits, get more in refunds than they might "pay" in.

      • Re:

        Roughly half of the US already pays no net federal taxes.

        And yet a significant portion of the country lives in poverty. Also it was very right that you included the "Federal" part of that statement.

        The idea that's under discussion is essentially a variant of universal income. Are your declared earnings less than $X? Get money back from the government in proportion to how far under $X they are.

        In my view it's stupid, because it's essentially a subsidy on Walmart and other underpayers. It's just less

        • Re:

          The best way to solve the amount of waste is to go after Wal-Mart and companies like them. It would reduce the number of people on this program to a smaller core group that still needs it. And remember, even when you fix Wal-Mart's issues now, Social Security payments for Wal-Mart's retirees are going to be based on those low wages too. It would take decades for that to completely fade away.

          • Re:

            Go after? For..what exactly and specifically? Following all applicable laws? Good luck with that.
        • Re:

          Lives in poverty, meaning what? Starving? Without adequate shelter and clothing? I think not. "Poverty" is a moving target. I believe you should have guaranteed health care, and enough calories and shelter to survive, that's it. We've almost got that now, though some work is needed on healthcare. Want anything more then work for it or get lucky, them's the breaks.
        • Re:

          Who said that paying no federal income taxes would lift you out of poverty? It is a provable fact that roughly half of US tax filers pay no net federal income taxes,

      • Re:

        This is a stupid fucking statistic.
        Roughly half of the US works, period.
        The vast majority of those, are retired or children.

        No. Some absolutely do, no doubt about it.
        The CTC wipes off at most $3600 per child of tax. For a married couple with a single child, this means a combined income of ~35k in order to break even, which is less than the lowest state median income in the country.
        So while these people certainly exist, your Welfare Queen trope is weak.

        Your talking points need updating.

    • Re:

      Oh no? What do you call it when your deductions exceed income taxes collected? There are millions of low-income tax filers that get refunded more than they paid into the income tax system - that seems like negative taxation to me, but you must have a different definition.

  • Re:

    Biden was no doubt able to negotiate better deals. Comcast has had low cost internet for low income households for some time. I have little doubt these companies managed to shake the government down for money but if one of them was already doing it for like $10/mo then they all could do it.

    This whole thing is a win for the ISPs and the low income subscribers. Since the government is involved it won’t seem weird to ask for proof of income, and now they can service a small untapped market without hav

    • What Biden negotiated here isn't the low cost internet, it's actually getting it. Those "$10/mo" packages come with so many asterisks you'd think they were from Gaul.

      Yeah, the cable companies are still doing great at $30/mo. Internet is cheap. We only pay a lot for it because, well, the free market can charge whatever people can afford to pay, so unless you make it a public utility you're gonna get soaked.
      • Re:

        Aren’t you that guy who thinks people spy on him from wires that drawn into his pores at night?

  • Re:

    Rs: "RAH FREE MARKET!!!!"
    Biden: "Let's make sure people have better access to information"
    Rs: "NO NOT LIKE THAT!!!"

  • Re:

    It's about power. It's easier for Biden to negotiate a 10% off coupon (restrictions apply, no refunds, cash value 0.01c) off Lays Potato Chips, than it is for him to ask Congress to, well, do anything. So this is what's happened - Biden's gone to the industry and said "Look guys, these people can't afford your services any way, and you currently charge 3-6X what it costs to provide the service, judging by how much people are paying in Europe, so mebbe you could provide it to the poors?"

    I don't know if yo

    • Re:

      Do you know anything about this or just like to talk?

      This is an expansion of the Emergency Broadband Benefit from COVID times, signed under President Trump. It's basically just a modernized Internet extension to the Lifeline program. This new program was in a bill passed LAST YEAR. The older EBB program expired on March 1, so they're about 2 months late announcing participating provdiers.

      The current administration is doing a good thing by passing this, but the only agreement or negotiation here is that

      • Re:

        Do you know anything about this or just like to talk?

        The question was why is Biden doing this rather than giving money to poor people. You might look less like a prick if you read the context rather than jumping in with some stupid "correction" that doesn't contradict a single thing it's supposed to claim.

        I do find irony in the fact you're claiming I'm the one who "just likes to talk" given your attempt at pedantry was completely unwarranted and unnecessary.

    • The $200k per year partners are paying for Joe Six-Pack's daughters' baby. So fuck off. We need a bone too. Only fair.

  • like most means tested programs in America these are for people so poor they pay little or no federal income tax (outside of Medicare and Social security, and we can't lower those because we'd need to lift the cap that protects high income earners and we sure as hell aren't gonna do that). They're not usually paying a lot of State income taxes either (outside of Arizona, which kinda screws the poor on income tax, again for the same reason we don't lift that cap on SSI taxes).

    As for raising wages, Presid
  • Re:

    Their taxes are negative. The standard deductions reduce their tax to nothing, and EITC plus other credits mean the tax system pays them.

    • Re:

      The standard deduction reduces a tiny amount of taxpayers taxable income to zero.

      The reason for that, is because it's fucking $10k per filer. People generally make more than $10k here in the US. By quite a bit.
  • Re:

    Do you really think that if you just give $30 a month outright to people with low incomes, they'll use it to buy better internet service?

    The inner city charity I volunteer with, recently came across a woman who didn't have a refrigerator and couldn't afford to buy one. So we found one and gave it to her, free of charge. She immediately sold it to get some cash.

    There are some people who are poor because of bad luck. But most (in the US) are poor because they make poor spending choices, or have poor work habi

    • Re:

      The first two goals are easy, it's that "happy" part that we haven't quite figured out yet. Maybe congress should mandate happiness.

    • You mean like the national interstate highways allowing someone to drive themselves across the continental US in only a matter of days? Or drive a truck full of goods?

      If you truly want to investigate US socialism, look no further than USDA handouts to wealthy land owner "farmers" not to grow stuff.
      • Re:

        That's not socialism! Those are subsidies for the poor, down-trodden farmers, the salt of this earth. They're two completely different things!/s

      • Looks to me Walmart pays $15/hour starting salary. So that comes out to roughly 30K/year for a full-time position (starting). You can definitely live on that, albeit you probably won't take European vacations. What's really missing is free healthcare from the government, and that IS something we should all be paying for anyway.
        • Re:

          Yeah, you see this silly talking point all the time "muh walmart welfare!". It tends to come from the tragically out of touch people who read their talking point on similarly outdated progressive websites and forums.

          Even if Walmart paid literal bare minimum wage it's a silly point. You are paid based on the market for labor, not on the cost of living.

        • Re:

          Where can you live so that housing is $625 / month (25% of 30k / 12)? And that's assuming that Wal-Mart will give you a full-time job. Aren't they known for giving "associates" part-time positions specifically to avoid paying full-time benefits?
          • Re:

            I call bullshit on that article. Not because it's completely inaccurate, but here's the crux. From TFA:

            First of all, the average family has a couple of cars, has a couple of jobs, has a family vacation to Disney, and goes out for pizza once a week or more. Nobody expects those working at "minimum" wage to live like the average family, or it would then be considered as "the average family". When you're making minimum wage (and don't forget, nobody makes minimum wage forever. They move up after a few yea

    • Re:

      Because Tucker says a thing does not make it "known".

      The reason you don't have the numbers is because they show your assertion to be false.

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