Comcast-HUD Partnership to Bring Discounted Internet to Public Housing in Four Cities

(TNS) -- Comcast Corp. will expand its $10-a-month discounted Internet Essentials program to residents of public housing in Philadelphia, Miami, Nashville, and Seattle in a project with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the federal agency and the Philadelphia cable giant said Thursday morning.

The new program is the latest expansion of Comcast's Internet Essentials offering that has enrolled 600,000 low-income families.

The program was launched as a condition of Comcast's acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011 and is designed to help close the nation's seemingly intractable "digital divide" by making Internet services available to poor families.

Unlike the existing Internet Essentials program that is restricted to low-income families with school-age children, public housing residents without children also qualify for Internet Essentials, Comcast said.

Comcast serves about 5,000 of 14,000 units run by the Philadelphia Housing Authority. Wilco Electronics Systems Inc. serves the other units. Wilco is based in Fort Washington and was not named as a participant in the program. An official with Wilco could not be reached for comment.

The program announced Thursday by Comcast executive David Cohen and HUD Secretary Julian Castro in Miami will extend the Internet Essentials to 36,000 housing units in the four cities, including the 5,000 in Philadelphia. It is not yet known how many housing units in the city will benefit from the expanded eligibility.

"Internet access at home is essential to succeed in today's digital world on all fronts, from employment to education," Cohen said in a statement. "Unfortunately . . . the majority of low-income families, including those in public housing . . . are not connected," he said.

Critics have said that Comcast's Internet Essentials has been too restrictive and called for the company to loosen its rules. So far the cable giant has experimented with offering Internet Essentials to senior citizens in West Palm Beach, Fla., and San Francisco. The company also has run a pilot program offering the service to community college students in Colorado and Illinois.

As part of its Philadelphia cable-TV franchise renewal in 2015, Comcast agreed to make available all the expansions of the Internet Essentials program to Philadelphia residents along with other cities where the expansions are launched.

©2016 The Philadelphia Inquirer Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.