As regulators ponder Comcast’s application to acquire Time Warner Cable, the issue of affordable Internet has been a hot topic as part of the merger review. So it is no surprise Comcast has announced it is extending its recent offer of six free months of Internet Essentials service to income-challenged families with school age children an extra 10 days.

“On August 4^th, we made a special announcement: we are offering any family that has not yet signed up for Internet Essentials, up to six months of free service, if they apply before September 20th,” said Comcast executive vice president David Cohen on Comcast’s blog.  “Today, I’m thrilled to announce we’re going to extend that offer through Tuesday, September 30th.”

Comcast admits that only families that have never applied for Internet Essentials in the past can receive free service. Those already enrolled or who attempted to enroll in the past do not qualify.

The cable company does not make participation easy and is intent on protecting the revenue it earns selling regularly priced Internet service by keeping current customers out of the Internet Essentials program.

Just qualifying for Internet Essentials requires navigating an obstacle course:

The program is only available to households:

• that have at least one child who is eligible to participate in the National School Lunch Program (the “NSLP”) and as confirmed annually while enrolled in the program;
• do not have an overdue Comcast bill or unreturned equipment; and
• have not subscribed to any Comcast Internet service within the last ninety (90) days.

Internet Essentials promises no price increases, but the fine print suggests otherwise.

The program will only accept new customers for three full school years. After that, if Comcast decides it doesn’t want to offer the service any longer, customers are out of luck. Comcast can also restrict enrollment periods when it accepts new participants and requires annual verification paperwork demonstrating continued participation in the NSLP.

Comcast can throw families out of the program: if a child relocates outside of the household, loses NSLP eligibility, if a bill is paid late, if Comcast decides to stop offering the program, or if your account is closed. If you move, your account will be closed even if you choose to continue Comcast service at your new address, so don’t plan on going anywhere.

If and when Comcast determines your participation in Internet Essentials is over, your rates will automatically reset to standard Internet pricing without further notice. So much for promises of no rate increases. Those regular prices start at around $40 a month + a monthly modem rental fee of around $8 — quite a difference from $9.95.

Although the terms and conditions do not reflect it, Comcast claims to be continuing an “amnesty program” for would-be applicants with past due balances:

If customers have an outstanding bill that is more than one year old, then as long as they meet all the other eligibility criteria, they can apply to the program and we will provide amnesty for that back due bill for the purpose of connecting to Internet Essentials. If customers’ outstanding bills are less than a year old, however, then we would like them to settle that debt with us before they can be eligible to apply for the program. We are willing to work with families whose debt is reasonable enough that that they could pay us back in installments.

For more information, visit www.internetessentials.com or, for Spanish, www.internetbasico.com. You can also call 1-855-8-INTERNET or, for Spanish, 1-855-SOLO-995.

Thursday’s Winston-Salem Journal featured an editorial calling on the North Carolina legislature to get out of the way as municipalities across the state take control of their broadband destinies.

The piece, Broadband Battle, echoes what Stop the Cap! has been writing for more than a year now:

• More than decade after the Internet became a household word, too many households in the state still don’t have broadband access to it;
• “High-speed,” as defined by many of the state’s providers, doesn’t meet today’s definition of multimedia-ready broadband that can support today’s high bandwidth applications;
• When private providers cannot or will not meet a community’s needs, they shouldn’t have to wait indefinitely for that to change.  If municipalities want to establish high-speed service at the behest of their residents, let them!

The Journal sees through a transparent effort by Senator David Hoyle and others to ensure protectionism for a marketplace duopoly.

Fifteen years after Internet use became common, the telecoms still do not provide high-speed service to much of North Carolina. They can’t expect people to wait any longer.

The telecommunications industry wants the legislature to make it more difficult for local governments to offer high-speed Internet service. The giant companies say they can’t compete with local governments in towns of a couple thousand people.

If the telecoms don’t want local governments to establish these Internet services, they should rush into these areas and establish service now.

The newspaper points out the yoga-like stretching Hoyle and his allies are doing to justify their obstacle course for municipal broadband, noting they are demanding a higher standard for financing municipal broadband than exists for most other government borrowing. And legislators would look hypocritical in passing such legislation because they’ve been borrowing without bond referenda for many years.

The newspaper takes a common sense attitude about such projects — if providers really want to stop them, they should rush into the areas where they are proposed and deliver the world-class 21st century broadband service consumers want and prices they can afford.  Instead, they divert subscriber’s monthly bill payments to high-priced lobbying efforts to kill potential competition.

The editorial’s advice to the General Assembly?  Ignore the telecoms on this issue.  Unfortunately, for some legislators, that means ignoring campaign contributions.  The best way to strengthen their resolve is to let them know they won’t get any more of those checks if they aren’t re-elected.