CURMUDGUCATION: Internet Data Caps Are Coming

CURMUDGUCATION: Internet Data Caps Are Coming

Internet Data Caps Are Coming

If you are a Comcast customer in the Northeast US, changes are coming. 

2021 will bring caps for home internet customers in Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont, West Virginia, and DC, as well as selected slices of North Carolina and Ohio.

There are reasons not to freak out. 

First, the cap is at 1.2 TB, which is a huge amount of data. Comcast says it's good for 21,600 hours of streaming music, 500 hours of streaming HD shows, 34,000 hours of online gaming, or 3,500 hours of video chatting. 

Second, for other parts of the country, this is not new. Comcast started capping accounts in other parts of the US way back in 2016. 

So, we're probably not looking at any sort of major issue right now.

However, as we contemplate the probable increased interest in internet-based schooling, it's a good time to remember that internet access is currently not free, not infinite, and not universal. 

If the Biden administration wants a goof internet policy project to tackle, let's look at pandemic schooling as a clear sign--again--that internet access should be a public utility, like water and electricity. It's way past time.

CURMUDGUCATION: Internet Data Caps Are Coming

How Our Biggest ISPs Are Failing Students During COVID-19 - PopularResistance.Org

How Our Biggest ISPs Are Failing Students During COVID-19 - PopularResistance.Org

HOW OUR BIGGEST ISPS ARE FAILING STUDENTS DURING COVID-19

Early in the pandemic, one of our MediaJustice Network members reached out to us in hopes we could support a group of high school students in Baltimore who were trying to amplify their campaign. The students are leaders in a Latinx and immigrant student organization called Students Organizing for a Multicultural and Open Society (SOMOS), and this was their first time organizing for digital equity.

When school ended last year, SOMOS realized that many of their fellow Baltimore city schoolmates who’d relied on Comcast’s Internet Essentials discount program didn’t have a connection fast or reliable enough for online school. Whenever they could get into virtual classes, they’d often get kicked off multiple times a day and sometimes multiple times during a single class. Households with multiple students or family members working from home had to schedule who could be online, when and for how long. Families were put in impossible situations, forced to negotiate whose education or work was more important, and who would have to sacrifice and fall behind.

Philadelphia MediaJustice Network member Movement Alliance Project (MAP) had been working with allies and students on a #ParkingLotWifi campaign highlighting stories that have become all too familiar in 2020: parents and students sitting in parking lots (like Taco Bell) just to get access to WiFi for CONTINUE READING: How Our Biggest ISPs Are Failing Students During COVID-19 - PopularResistance.Org