 parents are unemployed or have jobs that pay minimum hourly rates are also often locked out of high-speed broadband links. They may not be able to afford to purchase computers and pay the high rates for Internet access charged in the United States. www.TechnicalPDF.com There are subsidies available for families of school- aged children that live in low-cost Housing and Urban Development (HUD) housing or earn below a certain level of income. Some providers offer subsidized broadband at $10 monthly with data rates between 10 and 15 Mbps: Comcast, Verizon, Google, and AT&T each offer discounted services in their coverage areas. The Transformation of AT&T, CenturyLink, and Verizon into Conglomerates As a result of the following mergers, by 2011 the seven RBOCs plus CenturyLink had been reorganized into the three largest telecommunications providers in the United States: Verizon Communications, AT&T, Inc., and CenturyLink. Here are the pre-2011 mergers resulting in consolidations: AT&T: In 2005 SBC, one of the seven local telephone companies, purchased AT&T for its international and interstate long-distance network. When it purchased AT&T, SBC changed its name to AT&T because of its higher national recognition. SBC purchased the following providers under its own name until 2005 when it made these purchases under the AT&T name: 1997: SBC purchased Pacific Telesis Group, the Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) in California and Nevada . 1997: SBC purchased Southern New England Telephone, the incumbent telephone company in Connecticut - 2005: AT&T purchased RBOC Pacific Telesis in California 2007: AT&T purchased RBOC Ameritech whose territory included Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Wisconsin Verizon: In 1997 regional bell operating company Bell Atlantic purchased NYNEX, the former phone company in New England. NYNEX was created from the merger of New York Telephone Company and New England Telephone Company. 2000: Verizon purchased GTE, the largest non-Bell telephone company in the U.S and changed its name fro