Last month, we told you about how you can get $ 50 per month from the federal government as part of an emergency broadband broadband (EBB) program to help pay your internet. Registration for programs that officially began on May 12, but when Washington Post reported earlier this week (through Ars Technica), some internet service providers made it difficult to utilize subsidies by forcing customers to improve their plans.
As Geoffrey A. Fowler recorded in its part for the Washington Post, there were more than $ 3.2 billion to be contested as part of the EBB program. The ISP can participate in the program voluntarily, and they can decide how exactly they want to distribute money. After talking to consumers who tried to register for this program, Fowler found that many found it as a process that frustrated.
“Verizon raises the most anger from the reader,” Fowler explained. “It requires customers to call the telephone line to register for the ups and downs, rather than just register online. And when you do it, Verizon tells some customers, EBB cannot be used on the” old “data package, so they have to switch. It might be permitted by legal letters but of course not the spirit of the program. “
One of the Verizon customers checked Fowler to say that the $ 62 internet package per month at this time does not apply to ups and downs, and therefore he must improve to the new Verizon FiOS plan. The price of a new package will be $ 79 per month. Other customers who have paid $ 79 per month are told that he needs to improve to the new plan that will cost around $ 95. Finally, the third customer is told that he does not only need to increase the internet speed, but also change the TV package if he wants to fulfill Requirements for ups and downs. At least two of the three gave up when they were faced with this unexpected complication.
Fowler reached out to the ISP after talking to this dissatisfied customer, and Verizon spokesman Alex Lawson told him that the company stated on his website that tides only apply to “qualifying plans,” which with only a mixing & match plan.
“There really isn’t a story here,” Lawson told Fowler. “We are on the customer side and want to make sure they pay what they need, and not because of what they don’t do.”
Verizon is the most terrible of the main ISP, but AT & T and charter customers also have the same problem. For AT & T, you must register for one of the packages on this page to qualify for ups and downs, while the charter says “a very small percentage of customers” with the heritage plan must switch. Comcast seems to be the best of many. “If a customer is on the old plan that is not offered again, they are still eligible as long as they meet the qualification criteria for EBB,” said Comcast’s spokesman Joel Shadle to Fowler.