AT&T Offers Free Service for New School Customers

AT&T is boosting its efforts to help homebound school kids hit the digital books. 

As of Tuesday (March 24), the company said that for schools activating new data-only plans for school issued tablets, laptops and hotspot devices, it will offer 60 days of free wireless service. 

In addition, it will make AccessMYLANTM available to school administrators for the same 60 days. That is a service that allows those administrators to control the sites the students can access to "help protect them from unsafe content and also to block malicious sites, malware and hacking attempts"--as well as to help cut down on the online distractions. But AT&T thought of that, too. 

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"To help keep families connected during this uncertain time," AT&T said it will also fund 60 days of free access and unlimited use of Caribu, "a video-calling application that allows family members to read, draw, and play games with one another while in distant locations."

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.