Comcast’s Internet Essentials now available for families with late bills

Comcast is now allowing households with overdue bills to enroll in Internet Essentials, its low-cost broadband program. It’s been a major hindrance to the program, Philadelphians have said. Families with even one overdue bill were barred from subscribing.

More than 11,000 Philadelphia households out of the 98,000 that are eligible in the region have signed up for the program, said Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer Bilotta. That number of eligible households does not account for those with overdue bills. It only accounts for the number of households with at least one child who are eligible for free or reduced-priced school lunch. Comcast does not know how many households the new amnesty program will affect, Bilotta said.

Comcast also announced that it would offer Internet Essentials for free for six months to any household that has never signed up before. This offer expands on one that Comcast made available last spring, allowing families to sign up for six free months of Internet Essentials if they signed up in a specific two-week period.

The program’s expansion comes at a time when Comcast is lobbying the federal government to approve its merger with Time Warner Cable. Comcast originally launched the Internet Essentials program in 2011 in response to requirements imposed by the Federal Communications Commission when Comcast purchased a majority stake in NBC Universal.