ACP vs Private Low-Income Plans

I applaud private efforts to address low-income adoption, particularly Comcast’s Internet Essentials, which is the oldest and most extensive program. Comcast started the program in 2011 and has continually studied and changed the program to improve its outcomes. That is the path the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Congress should follow with the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). But the question ignores how the ACP, by focusing on improving the demand side of the equation, improved the supply side of low-income offerings.  ACP caused the private sector to improve the quality of their offerings to lower income Americans—both in terms of the price actually paid by the consumer and the quality of the service—in response to greater aggregate demand from lower-income households. Moreover, I don’t think that private efforts alone will solve the problem of universal broadband, in the same way that the admirable private efforts providing meals for the hungry would not eliminate the need for SNAP or the commendable charitable efforts related to healthcare would not eliminate the need for Medicaid.