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Obama to expand broadband for low-income families

2015-07-17 13:48 by

 

U.S. President Barack Obama has announced a pilot project that aims to provide high-speed Internet service to low-income households.

Named "ConnectHome", the new initiative will bring high-speed broadband access to over 275,000 low-income households across the US. The program is expected to launch in 27 cities including New York, Boston and Seattle, as well as the Choctaw Tribal Nation in Oklahoma. Nearly 200,000 low income children will benefit from the service.

The president's goal is to bridge the so-called "homework gap" - too many children in poverty-stricken areas don't have internet access outside of school, so they can't research, do homework or communicate through email at home like their middle-class peers. Among the providers that have signed on to make the Internet cheaper and more accessible are Google, Cox, Sprint, and Century Link.

"Today, high speed broadband is not a luxury, it's a necessity," President Obama said earlier this year. Yet home internet access is still an extravagance out of reach for many Americans. Today, the White House announced a program designed to change that.

"While many middle-class U.S. students go home to Internet access, allowing them to do research, write papers, and communicate digitally with their teachers and other students, too many lower-income children go unplugged every afternoon when school ends," the White House said. "This 'homework gap' runs the risk of widening the achievement gap, denying hardworking students the benefit of a technology-enriched education."

Read more -here-

 

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