Stacie Sherman is reporting for Bloomberg that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed a bill April 16, requiring all Internet service providers in New York to offer affordable high-speed access for low-income families. Providers can charge those families no more than $15 a month, Cuomo said during a briefing Friday at the Northland Workforce Training Center in Buffalo. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Alphabet Inc. joined Cuomo for the bill signing. Schmidt chairs a 15-member state commission focused on using technology to help the state reopen better than it was before the virus. It was also announced that an emergency fund from Schmidt Futures and the Ford Foundation will provide free Internet access to 50,000 students statewide during the 2021-22 school year. The bill passed by the state legislature caps a basic broadband plan at $15 a month and a higher-speed plan at $20. Currently, a basic high-speed plan costs on average more than $50 a month. Schmidt said universal broadband access is the first and most important priority of the commission. “Internet is no longer optional,” he said. “Think of the generation that we could be creating that are not learning because we didn’t give them Internet access.” Read the full story at Yahoo! Finance.