Comcast's Internet Essentials program that provides $10-per-month Internet service to low-income families has been expanded to make about 1.3 million additional households eligible.

Comcast created Internet Essentials in order to secure approval of its acquisition of NBCUniversal in 2011 and has decided to continue it indefinitely even though the requirement expired in 2014. Comcast says the 10Mbps plan has connected more than 600,000 low-income families since 2011, for a total of 2.4 million adults and children, and provided 47,000 subsidized computers for less than $150 each.

Advocates for the poor have complained that the Internet Essentials service is too hard to sign up for, in part because of problems with the application process but also because it's usually only available to families with kids in school. That latter issue is what Comcast addressed today, announcing that "adults without a child eligible for the National School Lunch Program will be eligible to apply for Internet Essentials." Previously, pilot programs gave access to some low-income seniors and low-income community college students, but this is the first time that Internet Essentials will be available to adults without children nationwide.

Comcast is partnering with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to offer access to adults living in HUD-assisted homes even if they have no children. Comcast made this change in a few cities in March as part of a pilot and has now put it into place throughout its territory. Up to 2 million HUD-assisted homes are now eligible for Internet Essentials; as 35 percent have children and were thus already eligible, the expansion adds another 1.3 million households.

Low-income adults still have to meet some eligibility requirements to qualify. Customers with unpaid bills are ineligible if the debt to Comcast is less than a year old. Comcast says that customers also can't sign up for Internet Essentials if they have subscribed to other Comcast Internet plans within the last 90 days, a roadblock for people who are already paying for pricier plans because they were ineligible for Internet Essentials or weren't aware that it exists.

Comcast sometimes uses Internet Essentials as a lobbying tool. For example, Comcast pledged to expand the program to Time Warner Cable territory if it was allowed to purchase the company, but the merger was blocked by regulators over concerns about harm to online video providers.

Google Fiber has started offering a similar program for residents in affordable housing, but instead of charging for the service and limiting speeds to 10Mbps, Google's low-income plan is free and has gigabit speeds. Comcast's program connects many more people due to the company's size, however.

Comcast said it has expanded eligibility nine times in five years. "Comcast has expanded the number of schools where every student in the school will be deemed eligible for the program so long as a certain percentage of the kids in that school are NSLP [National School Lunch Program] eligible—from 70 percent, to 50 percent, and now to 40 percent," Comcast said. "As a result, Comcast estimates auto-enrollment now applies to about half of the 48,000 schools across its service area."

About 2.6 million households with children were eligible when the program began in 2011, but Comcast hasn't provided an updated total.