Extending Our Commitments to Keep Utahns Connected and Advance Digital Equity

February 3, 2021

Connecting you to more of what you love. This is Comcast’s core value, and our teams work every day to ensure we are delivering on that expectation.

As Utahns across the state continue to work and learn from home, we’ve extended our COVID-19 commitments to help people connect to the Internet and made several announcements building upon our long-standing commitment to advancing digital equity.

The extended commitments include:

Free 60 Days of Internet Essentials & Speed Increase for Low-Income Families: Free Internet service for the first 60 days for new Internet Essentials customers who sign up by June 30, 2021 and a doubleed Internet Essentials download speed to 50 Mbps and increase in the upstream speed to 5 Mbps. Learn more about the affordable home Internet program here.
Xfinity WiFi Free for Everyone: Free access to more than 1.5 million public Xfinity WiFi hotspots nationwide through June 30, 2021.
WiFi Connected Community Lift Zones: Free WiFi at local community centers to support distance learning with a plan to launch more than 1,000 Lift Zones by December 2021. We’re currently working to equip locations across the state as Lift Zone locations.
Investing in Education & Equity-Focused Organizations: Expanding investments in organizations focused on creating greater pathways to opportunities for communities of color to drive sustained change.
Network Investment: Continuing to expand and evolve our network to meet the growing needs of our communities.
Comcast RISE Supporting BIPOC Small Businesses: Program to help strengthen and empower small businesses, starting with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color owned businesses; those hardest hit by COVID-19 through Comcast RISE.
Free Educational Resources: Free educational resources in partnership with Common Sense Media to support remote learning for kids K-12.

We remain steadfast in our commitment to help families and individuals stay connected, and to help empower small businesses.

To accomplish this, we are partnering with our local elected officials, nonprofit and educational partners across the state to support our communities and build digital equity.

One example of a partner we work closely with on this effort year-round is The International Rescue Committee. We work with them to support local refugees and displaced people with critical digital literacy skills and home connectivity.

The International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Salt Lake City has been partnering with Comcast for a few years now and it’s been an incredible partnership. We have been using Internet Essentials for our clients for many years. They have expanded it in the last year which has been a great opportunity for more of our clients to use the program,” said Krysti Nellermoe, Education Program Supervisor.

Abderahim Idriss, a client of IRC who learned about the Internet Essentials program through IRC stated:

[Internet Essentials] really helped us. My wife and I are able to find a lot more videos for English practice, and the kids are able to do research for school. It has made a lot more things accessible for us,” said Abderahim Idriss