Cable Ops to Follow Comcast's Internet Essentials Model

Low-cost broadband offering to low-income houses with school kids to expand as part of FCC's Connect to Compete Initiative

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/8/2011 4:43:39 PM

According to multiple sources, the FCC is going to announce Wednesday that other major cable industry players and community groups, including One Economy, are joining the nation's largest cable operator, Comcast, in the Internet Essentials model of providing low-cost broadband -- $9.95 a month -- digital literacy education and a low-cost computer to every home with a school-age child who qualifies for the nation's free-lunch program.

It is part of the FCC's Connect to Compete initiative launched last month. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski will announce the industry's commitment tomorrow at a D.C. public school. It is described as an "unprecedented effort to address the cost barrier to broadband adoption."

Genachowski last month applauded Comcast for that Internet Essentials program, while calling on the rest of the industry to do all it could to close the digital divide, repeating a call he made at the cable show in Chicago in June.

The National Cable & Telecommunications Association almost two years ago proposed an Adoption-Plus (A+) program to offer low-income families with middle school kids half price broadband service and half price modems for two years, plus free installation. But that program was contingent on government-funded training and education (via broadband stimulus money)  and never got off the ground.