When the novel coronavirus forced schools to shut down last March, Maegen Wagner, a single mother living near Reading, Pennsylvania, was thankful for at least one thing: She didn’t need to worry about how she’d pay for internet service.
Since her divorce in 2017, the 39-year-old mother of two children had been enrolled in Comcast’s Internet Essentials program, which offers low-income families broadband access for only $9.95 per month. While money was already tight before the pandemic began, things got even worse for Wagner when she lost her assistant teaching job just as remote learning classes resumed in the fall.
Wagner applied for unemployment, but it took months before she began receiving checks.
“This whole pandemic has been a struggle, to be honest,” she said. “I don’t know what we would have done if I also had to worry about a $100-a-month bill for internet service. There’s no way I could have paid that.”
Going to a public Wi-Fi hotspot at a library or community…
Source CNET Tech
Source link
