According to a news release Thursday, under the new sponsor-state agreement, public agencies and nonprofits in Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., and eight other eastern states — Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont — can now use federal funds to purchase devices, service plans and hot spots for their constituents at a steep discount.
This brings the number of state governments on Georgia’s agreement with Verizon to 22, not counting Washington, D.C. Others included in Georgia’s initial agreement in August were Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.
Verizon’s discount program builds upon the company’s digital inclusion efforts for K-12 students last year, this time extending discounted rates to family members and allowing other state agencies, such as housing authorities and employment agencies, to purchase and administer the plans and devices.
Explaining a drastic need for broadband affordability, Verizon’s news release points to data from the New American Economy Research Fund, a bipartisan research organization, that shows 43.7 percent of low-income U.S. households in 2018 lacked personal high-speed Internet. That was more than double the proportion for the rest of the population.
