"Oregon will work to ensure that every resident has reliable and affordable access to the internet along with the necessary tools and skills that unlock opportunities for educational advancement, economic success, improved health, and strengthened social ties."
—Oregon Broadband Office's Five-Year Action Plan 

Although broadband is widely available in Oregon, it is not universally available. Oregon and the Oregon Broadband Office (OBO) have been laying the groundwork for the delivery of affordable, reliable broadband internet to every household in Oregon. The Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program—established by Congress in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act—is providing the state with more than $688 million to close the digital divide.

Among Oregon households that do not subscribe to internet service of any kind, an estimated 16 percent report that a primary reason they do not pay for broadband internet access service at home is an inability to afford service.

One of the most widely recognized interventions to lower the cost of internet service was the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). As of October 2023, 39 of the 139 ISPs (including mobile providers) participating in the ACP in Oregon were offering a “no cost” plan or plans—making a total of 43 “no cost” home or mobile internet plans available to ACP-eligible subscribers in the state.

With the wind-down of ACP, OBO is working to address end-user price stability. OBO anticipates consideration of any timely guidance issued by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) regarding BEAD subrecipient participation in other federal programs that provide qualifying low-income consumers with subsidies on broadband internet access.

Oregon’s goal is to remove affordability as a barrier to participation in the digital economy or digital experience. The strategies to achieve this goal include: 

1. Maximizing, to the extent possible, eligible residents’ participation in the ACP as well as the federal and Oregon Lifeline programs by working with cities, counties, tribes, ISPs, non-profits, and other entities to support outreach and enrollment programs.
2. Making affordability an important scoring criterion of all state broadband grant programs.
3. Working with ISPs to encourage them to create strategies since the ACP has now ended so that there will be robust and adequate low-cost plans offered at reasonable prices by ISPs to low-income households.
4. Giving additional points in grant program scoring to entities that make a commitment to offer adequate and reasonable low-cost plans for low-income households statewide, not only on publicly-funded infrastructure. 

Oregon's BEAD Low-Cost Broadband Service Option

The state of Oregon is committed to providing people in Oregon with the opportunity to receive low-cost broadband service, while simultaneously recognizing that ISPs have a variety of different plans and may be unable to alter their pricing structure on a large scale. Based on previous experiences, ODO says, ISPs are highly unlikely to implement different pricing structures for only BEAD-funded areas, while maintaining other pricing in areas that are not BEAD-funded. OBO’s intention is to aid as many people in Oregon as possible while ensuring that the scale of the low-cost obligation—and its resulting impact on the business case for ISP applications to build to unserved Oregon locations—is not too burdensome to grant applicants. 

OBO believes the $30 monthly ACP subsidy figure aligned with many current ISP low-cost offerings and represented a sensible benchmark cost for a low-cost service option to be offered by subgrantees. The eligibility requirement for the ACP subsidy was equal to household income at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, suggesting a precedent for that benchmark. The ACP National Verifier was a useful, low-cost means of verifying eligibility that did not impose an additional burden on either the consumer or the ISP.

OBO proposes to require all BEAD subgrantees to offer a service option that meets, at a minimum, the following criteria as NTIA recommends:  

• Cost of $30 per month or less, inclusive of all government taxes and fees, with no additional non-recurring costs or fees to the consumer (subject to updates based on the application of an annual inflation factor based on the Producer Price Index for the state of Oregon).
  • If a BEAD applicant can provide convincing evidence that the low-cost option at $30 with these provisions is unsustainable and unreasonable, OBO will negotiate with the provider on a low-cost service option not to exceed $50 and will not be increased with the annual inflation factor.
• Available to households with income equal to or below 200 percent of the federal poverty line. 
• Meets performance requirements as established by the BEAD program, with download speeds of at least 100 Megabits per second (Mbps), upload speeds of at least 20 Mbps, and typical latency of no more than 100 milliseconds.
• Is not subject to data caps, surcharges, or usage-based throttling, and is subject only to the same acceptable use policies to which subscribers of all other broadband internet access service plans offered to home subscribers by the participating subgrantee must adhere. 
• Allows subscribers to upgrade at no cost in the event the provider later offers a low-cost plan with higher speeds (downstream or upstream).

Oregon's BEAD Middle-Class Affordability Plan

Affordability plans and policies that support middle-class households’ access to reliable broadband are critical to ensure all people in Oregon are served, given that about 52.6 percent of Oregon households belong to the middle class. Affordability is more than merely the concern of whether people in Oregon can pay for service. Rather, affordability in the context of middle-income households is also inclusive of people in Oregon who can afford service, in theory, but nonetheless struggle with the financial burden of their monthly connectivity bill. To ensure that middle-income households have access to broadband, the lack of affordable broadband options must be addressed.

OBO is considering several policy options to ensure that broadband is accessible by all people in Oregon, while simultaneously remaining cognizant of the delicate position of ISPs. OBO aims to aid as many households as possible, while also aiming to prevent potential BEAD subgrantees from choosing not to participate in the program, which would lead to higher cost awards and fewer people in Oregon getting access to fiber broadband.

OBO’s approach intends to address the barrier of affordability that plagues many households with incomes that just surpass ACP eligibility. Accordingly, OBO plans to manage middle-class affordability within the context of the BEAD program by mitigating the following areas of undesired risk: 

1. Providers set high subscription costs. 

OBO will encourage ISPs participating in the state’s BEAD grant program to offer their best price to areas they serve with grant funding, matching the prices for analogous products they offer in other areas, in alignment with the gigabit best-offered pricing requirement in the BEAD program rules.

2. Providers shift drop and installation costs to the consumer to recover capital costs. 

Grant participation rules will make clear that drops and network equipment are eligible BEAD costs and must be built into grant proposals and that these costs cannot be passed along to consumers at BEAD-funded locations. OBO expects this risk to be somewhat mitigated by expanding competition in rural areas from LEO satellite options. 

3. Providers refuse to provide service to expensive locations. 

OBO will monitor and ensure that awardees make good on their BEAD service commitments, including not assessing additional fees beyond standard installation fees. 

4. Differential pricing between urban and new project areas 

The gigabit best pricing policy mandated in the BEAD program scoring matrix sets requirements around geographic non-discrimination. 

Affordability After ACP

Oregon is committed to establishing policies that will result in more widespread affordable broadband. This commitment to expanding the adoption of broadband throughout the state necessitates OBO working with BEAD subgrantees. In doing so, OBO believes it will increase the likelihood of ISP participation and, in effect, will provide people in Oregon with a genuine opportunity to be fully engaged in the digital world. 

Even without the ACP, OBO believes its low-cost broadband service option for BEAD-funded deployments will still be an effective means to reach eligible populations and maintain a baseline price for such populations.

OBO says it can:

• transition outreach efforts towards Lifeline and other local, state, or federal affordability programs and
• mandate that ISPs, as part of participation in BEAD, offer low-cost plans for potential low-income customers that may have qualified for the ACP.

Additional Coverage on Oregon Broadband Priorities

• Oregon's Plan for Meaningful Broadband Access

See the latest Oregon broadband news

More in this Series

• Louisiana's Plan for Affordable Broadband
• Pennsylvania's Plan for Affordable Broadband
• Washington State's Plan for Affordable Broadband
• The Kansas Affordability Plan
• Affordable Broadband for Nevada
• Will BEAD Networks Deliver Affordable Broadband for All in West Virginia?
• Delaware Wants to be the First State to Achieve Universal Broadband—Affordability is a Key Component
• Eliminating the Digital Divide in the District of Columbia Requires a Focus on Affordability
• A Plan to Bridge the Digital Divide in Colorado
• Ensuring All Hoosiers Have Reliable and Affordable Broadband
• Increasing Broadband Availability, Accessibility, and Affordability for the Benefit of All Utahns
• The Connection Between Affordability and Internet Adoption in Oregon

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all people in the U.S. have access to competitive, High-Performance Broadband regardless of where they live or who they are. We believe communication policy - rooted in the values of access, equity, and diversity - has the power to deliver new opportunities and strengthen communities.

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