Los Angeles Times

If you get free phone or internet in California, watch out for this snag

Researchers have found that salespeople offering free phone service through the California LifeLine Program often leave consumers in the dark about the trade-offs that come with it. In particular, each household can have only one account subsidized by LifeLine, and they can have only one supported by the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), the federal program which enables lower-income people to get free or deeply discounted broadband service.

You can get free broadband in L.A. if you’re a lower-income consumer. Here’s what to ask for

Tim Hebb lives in one of more than 1.6 million households in Los Angeles that qualify for a new federal subsidy program for high speed internet service. And according to the Biden administration, he ought to be able to use that $30-a-month subsidy to get free access — 20 of the largest U.S. broadband providers had agreed to provide connections with up to 100 megabits-per-second download speeds for no more than the subsidy amount.

As China shuts out the world, internet access from abroad gets harder too

One of the most sweeping surveillance states in the world, China has all but closed its borders since the start of the pandemic, accelerating a political turn inward as nationalism is on the rise and foreign ties are treated with suspicion.

More Californians are gaining broadband internet access, but Black and Latino households still lag

More Californians are gaining access to broadband internet, but Black and Latino households still lag behind their white counterparts, according to an analysis of the latest available American Community Survey data. The Public Policy Institute of California, which recently presented the findings, noted that the US Census Bureau survey paints a picture of expanding but unequal access to high-speed internet service in the state at a time when reliable internet service became a necessity for remote work and school.