COLUMBIA, S.C. — UPDATE: AT&T will offer two months of free service to new access customers who order by April 30, 2020. It will then be five dollars a month or 10 dollars a month after the two months, depending on speed. The company said it will expand eligibility for households participating in National School Lunch Program and Head Start, according to a S.C. Department of Education email.
All of South Carolina's hundreds of thousands of students are learning at home through at least the end of March.
Several of you have asked about internet access for your students.
On Friday, the South Carolina Department of Education provided an updated list of free and discounted internet providers.
The Department also says they have received 568 requests for wifi-enabled school buses. 3,000 of the buses are available.
As of Friday, 43 buses were already at or on the way to sites in Allendale, Clarendon, Dillon, Fairfield, Florence, and Hampton.
The Department said more will be placed over the weekend, the original plan was to roll them out Monday.
However, if you're not able to access the bus locations or otherwise want internet access for students in need, here is the list of free and discounted providers:
- AT&T: two months of free service to new access customers who order by April 30, 2020. It will then be five dollars a month or 10 dollars a month after the free two months, depending on speed. The company said it will expand eligibility for households participating in National School Lunch Program/Head start
- Charter/Spectrum: Free internet for 60 days for families without an existing Spectrum subscription, call 844-488-8395
- Chesne Communications: call 864-461-2211
- Comporium: Call 888-403-2667, if in the Midlands call 800-258-7978
- FTC: 888-218-5050 and press '4' when prompted, visit FTC.net and begin a chat session by clicking on the bottom right of the screen, text 843-382-8398, email contact@ftc.net
- Hagray: visit Hargray.com/freeinternet, or call 877-427-4729
- Home Telecom: visit HomeSC.com/Connect, or call 888-746-4482
- PRTC: Walterboro customers call 843-538-2020, or St. George customers call 843-931-1212
- PRTC (Piedmont): call 864-682-3131
- TruVista: call 800-768-1212
- WCTEL: call 864-446-2111, visit wctel.com/covid-19/
- Xfinity/Comcast: details on free hotspots at wifi.xfinity.com
The Department of Education and individual school districts are planning to provide locations for wifi-enabled buses when they begin operations.