To AT&T, Charter, Cox, Comcast, Frontier, T-Mobile, Verizon and other broadband and telephone providers:

In these unprecedented times, our ability to access affordable communications services is more important than ever. As millions of people across the country practice social distancing or are in quarantine, we are relying on your networks to ensure that we can access critical health-care services, apply for unemployment benefits, telework, educate our children, get counted in the census, stay in touch with loved ones and so much more.

Your prices are so high and policies so discriminatory that nationwide more than one-fifth of households don’t have home internet. Only 56 percent of households making less than $20,000 have home broadband, with low-income Black and Hispanic households even less likely to have home internet than their low-income white counterparts. This is unacceptable.

As unemployment numbers soar, people across the United States need you to take urgent action. We are calling on you to provide low-to-no-cost unlimited service during the COVID-19 outbreak.

    Not ? Click here.

    You will receive periodic updates from Free Press and Free Press Action Fund. You may unsubscribe at any time. We take your privacy seriously — read our privacy policy.

    Close the Coronavirus Digital Divide

    Tell ISPs: We Need Low-to-No-Cost Service During the COVID Crisis

    As millions of people across the United States are stepping up (and staying home) to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, reliable access to internet and phone services is more critical than ever. Our ability to access health care, apply for unemployment benefits, educate our children, telework, stay in touch with loved ones and so much more depends on it.

    However, both high prices and systemic racial discrimination are leaving millions of people on the wrong side of the digital divide. Twenty-two percent of households don’t have home internet, and low-income Black and Hispanic households are even less likely to have home internet than low-income white households.

    During a crisis, internet and phone access should be accessible public services — like water and electricity. Cable and phone companies can and must help in this historic moment. We need your help: Urge AT&T, Comcast, Verizon and the rest of the nation’s broadband providers to provide low-to-no-cost unlimited service during the COVID-19 outbreak.