Sprint To Provide 1 Million Students With Free Internet, Mobile Devices (reuters.com) 65
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Wireless carrier Sprint Corp on Tuesday pledged to provide 1 million U.S. high school students with free mobile devices and internet access as part of a White House initiative to expand opportunities for lower income kids. Marcelo Claure, chief executive of Sprint, said the plan builds on the company's prior commitment through the White House's ConnectED program to get 50,000 students high speed internet. He said Sprint realized that while providing students with internet at school was helpful, students would still need to be able to use the internet at home. "We are going to equip 1 million kids with the tools they need to reach their full potential and achieve their dreams," Claure told reporters on a White House call. Sprint aims to give cell phones, tablets, laptops or mobile hot spots to students who do not have internet at home. Students would be able to choose the type of device that might meet their needs and it would be coupled with four years of free data plans. The company hopes to reach its goal of a million students in five years. Manufacturers have agreed to provide the mobile devices at no cost, Claure said. He also said the company would encourage customers to donate their old devices to the program and that it would not cost Sprint much to allow the free use of its network.
Mystery solved! (Score:5, Funny)
I guess we know where all those returned Galaxy Note 7's are going.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess we know where all those returned Galaxy Note 7's are going.
Double purpose, acts as central heating if you can't afford the electricity bill.
Re: (Score:3)
I guess we know where all those returned Galaxy Note 7's are going.
Double purpose, acts as central heating if you can't afford the electricity bill.
I'm just not sure how you're going to charge it to provide the heating if you don't have electricity... ... I may not have thought this through completely.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd say it's an even split between e-bay and Craig's list if you ask me! :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I think samsung would really have something if they could just figure out how to get it to catch fire on demand instead of at random.
I was disappointed to find that if you wanted to have a kindle fire you had to actually light it yourself!
Re: (Score:2)
I think you misunderstood what is happening here. This is a business and marketing deal for Sprint. They get to hand out the first one for free and charge a lot for added services.
I'm somewhat inclined to think that there's probably a tax writeoff somewhere. That is, for each line that they give somebody for free, they might do something like claim that they "donated" whatever the regular price is, even though it doesn't cost them anywhere near that much. And given how shitty Sprint is, they could use all of the cost savings they can get.
Re: (Score:1)
Sprint is part of the government? Poor troll is poor.
Re: (Score:1)
more like You go to school, get good grades and get a 30K+ loan in use less skills and end working at Starbucks with a wage to low to pay back that loan.
Re: (Score:2)
Who forced them to pick a useless degree?
At least they had a nice four or five year party.
Re: (Score:2)
You go to school, get good grades, get a good job, stay out of trouble, all to make a good living and enjoy some luxuries.
But it looks like you don't need to do that because the fucking government is giving it all away.
Why would anyone want to escape poverty when poverty in the US is merely a lower middle class lifestyle?
You make it sound like you're more angry that poor people aren't accepting their station in life as being far beneath you than you are angry that the government is intervening (in this case, it's not).
How dare those pesky peasants try and make anything from their life and approach the status and rank of Sir Anonymous of Coward.
Re:Why does Iggy Pop even Fucking Bother? (Score:3)
# Dum dum daah, dum dum didah dum, Dum dum daah, dum dum didah dum, LUST FOR LIFE!
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you don't have to. If it's so adventageous not to get good grades, not to get a job, not to stay out of trouble, and not to make a good living, then by all means, don't do any of those things you "don't have to do."
My guess? You won't, because you damn well know that poverty in the US isn't merely a lower middle class lifestyle. Put your money where you mouth is or else you're trying to have your argument both ways.
Much better than Facebook (Score:3)
This is a much better than Facebook's plan of giving access to their tailormade list of sites that suits their interests.
Anyone who has kids knows how much the internet is central to a child's schooling needs now. It's more than just using the internet for research now. The internet is used as the medium in which teachers hand out assignments, give grades, accept assignments.
Without internet you can't be an affective student. If your parents don't have internet service you have to go places to access it from free-public places; libraries, whilst they're open, etc. Poor kids manage, but it's a definite disadvantage than having to access your work from home. Poor kids in rural areas are probably in extra trouble.
Ineffective? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's hard to focus on learning when you are going hungry. We tune out non-essential's when our basic needs are not being met.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that's along the lines of in-class teaching which probably doesn't enhance a kid's learning vs. pens/paper. That said, the Internet is essential to most school research work now, as libraries are often underfunded, carrying obsolete material, or simply not having information on a vast amount of topics necessary for children to self-direct their studies.
Re: (Score:2)
Trouble with the Internet: not everything out there is true. Perhaps the faked moon landings, UFO projects, and the newest patented tin-foil hat design are reliable, but how do we really know that when Wikipedia says that George Washington was the first American President, that it's correct? I've seen UFO's, and Bigfoot told me about the UFO's, but has anyone ever seen this Washington dude?
Lies, all lies. The Internet is full of them.
Give me a full set of Encyclopedia Britannica any day.
Re: (Score:2)
Britannica's are wrong too, and in fact have a single editor-centric view of the world, so a contentious article would either be: "The Editor's favourite selection", or a smaller, more ambiguous view of the topic. And of course since you generally buy a set for life, errors and omissions will essentially never be known to the original reader.
The internet (wikipedia specifically) have temporal errors which are statistically removed over time (often immediately after discovery) and their articles often lack a
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure every kid has the means of buying the hard-covers...
For the incredible low low price of $9.95 a month*, ANY student can afford** to own their own mint-condition Encyclopedia Britannica Special Hard Copy Edition!
* For 100 months
**Requires a low-interest payment plan and credit check
or you can buy this:
https://www.amazon.com/Encyclo... [amazon.com]
Re: (Score:2)
I think people don't understand exactly what kids do online (for school).
It's not just about them being able to go to Wikipedia to look up what happened in the war of the golden stool. [wikipedia.org]
Teachers give assignments via internet portals. Students turn in assignments via internet portals. Without internet, it's not that you can't look up on a map where the city of Mörön [google.com] is. It's that you can't turn your assignments in. You can't see what your assignments are. Thus bad grades.
Re: (Score:2)
I find it so strange that this is how assignments are turned in now; only because of how things were back in my days as a student. I know that was simply due to the Internet tools to do so not being present yet. Everything was done on paper and much of that was given to us as our "homework". This had the positive benefit of being an attainable thing to complete regardless of the technology available in my house.
Odd that in one way, technological 'progress' has actually hindered, not helped some people's e
Re: (Score:2)
You must be a millennial. The rest of us read "loosen the screw" and we know which way to turn it.
Re: (Score:2)
No clue, but if your talking about a something with facebook and candycrush in the middle of a class I'm sure the kid isn't paying any attention to the teacher. They confiscate smart phone at our high school if they catch students using them during class.
Re: (Score:2)
Where is that? In the US it'd be unconstitutional, in the EU it'd be against human rights, and anywhere it'd be "Sooooooo unfair!".
Re: (Score:2)
That's in the US... They only confiscate them until the end of class and only for repeat offends that refuse to stop, the school district doesn't want to be liable for some over priced smart phone.
Re: (Score:2)
Only LUDDITE students read books and write with pencils, etc etc APPS!
Re: (Score:2)
Would you check your stock? I'm looking for Slashdot Memes, 3rd Edition by J.R.Hartley.
Education discount (Score:1)
This screams political garbage. Sprint,AT&T and Verizon promote Family plans. How do you legally provide kids unlimited data? What is to prevent them from using it for streaming movies? How can a parent control misuse of the device?
The Eternal September continues (Score:1)
Thanks AOL.
More is needed. (Score:1)
Internet access is a great step. This is really, really cool, and definitely I will do more to find out about how to help my students get free access to the internet.
What is really needed is a way to easily use a cheap android phone as a laptop. Tablets definitely have their place, but for typing a report having a keyboard makes for a much better essay.
Verizon kinda does that (Score:2)
A friend at a local seattle community college received a verizon hotspot. Seems the college gave wifi units to every student, with no data caps. Not sure what the agreement was, or how it was included with the student fees, but all the students received them. unlimited verizon wifi hotspots (wow!)
We pay over 150 bux a month for 15gigs on verizon for ours, and these students had unlimited access. Crazy. As theres no high speed data in the rural areas of Washington state, and sat is over subscribed. W
Re: (Score:2)
I wonder, what proportion of that free unlimited bandwidth contributed to distractions from one's studies vs advancing one's education?
I'm sure many people used it wisely, but with such bandwidth, comes great opportunity...
Re: (Score:2)
What's the catch? (Score:1)
Can't believe Son and his buddies are doing this out of the goodness of their heart...
Here we go again... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Algebra is very useful in the real world. Even though you don't see the formula 5A = 14 + 6 written down on blackboards in real life and have to solve that problem, Algebra shows up in plenty of real life scenarios.
As a programmer I use Algebra every day for my job too.