WASHINGTON — Comcast is speeding up and expanding a discounted Internet service that was created to get more low-income people online.
Comcast created the program four years ago as a condition of government approval of its purchase of NBCUniversal. The service costs $10 a month, a quarter of Comcast’s promotional price for a slightly faster Internet speed.
Critics have said the service, called Internet Essentials, was too slow and its reach too limited.
The latest upgrade doubles the current speed to up to 10 megabits per second. That lets you watch online video but is still below the benchmark for broadband, 25 megabits, set by the Federal Communications Commission.
Internet Essentials had been limited to families of children who would qualify for the government’s discounted school-lunch program. Now Comcast is testing a program for low-income seniors, too.
“The increasing of the speed is a step in the right direction,” said Arturo Carmona, executive director of Presente, a Latino advocacy group that had fought Comcast’s failed proposal to merge with Time Warner Cable. “The real test will be in assuring that actual families will benefit from this.”
In Colorado, about 80,000 people have signed up for the program, which is 27 percent of the 300,000 who are eligible, according to spokeswoman Cindy Parsons.
In a report last year, the California Emerging Technology Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for broadband adoption, said signing up for Internet Essentials was a “long and cumbersome” process that can take up to three months.
Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas said some of the criticisms of the program are “quite old and have not been well-documented.”
Comcast says it’s increasing the number of schools whose families are eligible for faster approval. Once a family is approved, Comcast can send a self-installation kit in three to five days.
