Comcast Washington is offering free service and faster internet speeds to help Auburn families deal with the coronavirus health crisis.

The company announced immediate changes this week to its Internet Essentials program that has connected more than 340,000 Washington state residents since its inception, including 10,800 in Auburn alone, and more than 216,000 in the greater Puget Sound region.

Effective Monday, the program will have two substantial enhancements to help these families cope with this crisis:

• Free service for 60 days: Low-income families who live in Comcast’s service area who need the program will get 60 days of complimentary Internet Essentials service, which is normally available to all qualified low-income households for $9.95/month.

• More internet speeds: Comcast is increasing internet speeds for the Internet Essentials program for all and new and existing customers. The service will now change from 15/2 Mbps to 25/3 Mbps. With this increase, Internet Essentials customers will be able to use the internet service for all their increased needs. This will be the new speed of the service going forward.

To receive the increased Internet speeds, existing customers will not need to do anything. The new speeds will be rolled out nationally over the next few days.

To be eligible to apply to the program, low-income applicants need to show they are participating in one of more of a dozen different federal assistance programs. These include: Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

A full list of these programs can be found at internetessentials.com.