Low Cost Internet Access - $10 a Month

David Trammel's picture

One of the subjects Greer always speaks of, is how uneconomic the business model of the current Internet is, and how as things collapse, the price of access will rise.

I must confess I spend way too much on my Internet access. Its a fiber optics business line, that is just about the fastest AT&T offers, at about $90 a month. That's because a few years back, I did work in Virtual Reality. I've pretty much given that up and as I'm retiring soon and voluntarily collapsing, perhaps its time to downsize my Internet access as well.

Here's a deal to do that.

Comcast’s $10 internet plan opens up to all low-income and disabled Americans

You can use the program if you do any of these:

Persons with disabilities
Seniors on Medicaid
All low-income adults (defined as 38% above the poverty line in your area)

or use these programs:
Medicaid
National School Lunch Program (NSLP, free and reduced-price lunch)
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or food stamps)
HUD housing assistance and Section 8
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare)
Supplemental Security Income (social security)
Head Start or Early Head Start
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
Tribal assistance (TTANF and FDPIR)
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
VA pension

Worth looking into.

mountainmoma's picture

Used to be that you could only get this with a child at home who attends school, so it is fantastic news that they expanded who could qualify. But, the downside is, and it always has been, that you cannot get it if you are already their customer. Which is why many qualifying families in the past could not utilized it, the kids were using it for homework, so they couldnt cancel for that long. Because, if you are a customer of theirs you need to cancel your service and wait 90 days.

Cost savings, yes, I will have 2 cost savings. First, I will NOT be paying for access at all for 90 days, and that is $66/month, so $198 back into my pocket. Then, I will save ( there is taxes, so I dont know final price, lets say it is $15 with taxes) so I will save around $50 a month every month. This is alot of money at my budget level.

I am about to do this. In a few weeks, my existing internet is going to be turned off for 90 days, then I can sign up on the $10/month program at the beginning of December. I am going to be out of the house staying with family for the first half of it, so my access then will be the same for me, then the next 6 weeks I will only have internet if I drive somewhere like the library, so it will not be daily, a few times a week.

When you qualify for this program, you also qualify to buy an inexpensive, discounted purchase price laptop or desktop computer. SO it is $150 for a windows laptop, I forget the details, you can look it up. I may need to do this part to, we will see. My laptop died a few months ago, it was 9 years old, a macbook. I wore off the connection nubs on the computer for power, the metal just eventually wore down. I am presently using my dd's old laptop, grad school insisted she have a newer version, so another family member passed down a used, but newer, laptop and I got this one. This one does have a flakey display connection, but so far, so good, I can usually reclose and open. It could completely stop working at any time, so we will see. Most of us in my family, although having past good experiences with Apple, loyal apple family, will no longer buy one of their new models, for many reasons, but also they have missed the boat on the design and features, or rather lack of physical features and ports, went too far. I wont buy one also because there are too many lower cost options, I no longer see the computer as a neccesity or somewhere I need to keep things, it is a transitory device ( and no I do not use remote storage " the cloud" the energy bite for this is high) . I physically printed out photos about 18 months ago, made everyone a physical photo album. That realy was all that was important.

Besides a stripped down laptop option or a used model, there is also the option to just use something like a raspberry Pi and "build" a useable computer, can use an old laptop display and some cardboard ( likely need a new keyboard though)

At the end of the article there is a link to a long list of other cheap internet providers. Will have to check them out.

mountainmoma's picture

SSI is it's own program, paid out of our regular tax dollars for people who are disabled but have not paid any or enough into the social security system, most often people who have always been disabled or became disabled as a child or very young adult, the government has Social security office manage it which is the first reason it is confusing. The second confusion is that social security also HAS a disability component, it is SSDI, which is paid for by our social security payroll deduction. SSI SSDI . So, no wonder it is confusing.