Internet services are now subsidized as well.
More spending - yay! (sarc)
FCC Adds Broadband to Free Government Cell Phone Program
CheapInternet.com applauds FCC’s decision to offer Lifeline internet, a low-cost, high-speed broadband service for low income Americans.
February 07, 2012
They’ve been looking into it, studying it, and debating it for years. But now the Federal Communications Commission has finally approved a cheap internet-for-the-poor program similar to Lifeline, its existing free government cell phone program.
“Millions of low income Americans have been waiting for this,” Mark Henry, editor of CheapInternet.com said. “Lifeline internet is going to make it a lot easier for low-income adults to get jobs and a lot easier for poor children to succeed in school.”
Participants in the program, officially named Connect America, will be required to pay just $10 per month for high-speed broadband service. But the program is so closely allied with the Lifeline free government cell phone program that Henry expects the monthly fee to be eliminated in the future.
According to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, they intend to fund a $25 million pilot program by cracking down on fraud in the Lifeline phone program and using the savings to pay for the new benefits. Genachowski says they have already begun auditing Lifeline phone vendors to ferret out fraud and the effort has so far uncovered almost 270,000 fraudulent subscriptions in 12 states.
The FCC Chairman predicts that the changes will save as much as $2 billion over the next few years, far more than is needed to fund the beginnings of the cheap internet program.
“Broadband has gone from being a luxury to being a necessity,” Henry added. “This program is exactly what low income Americans need to succeed.”
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/2/prweb9168784.htm