An Evolving Level of Service

How will the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act impact universal service policy and, specifically, the Lifeline program? The new law sets up a transition from the Emergency Broadband Benefit, a program that is only six months old, to the new, more permanent Affordable Connectivity Program. If fashioned to work in conjunction with Lifeline (used mainly for wireless phone service), low-income consumers could well have access to a level of digital connectivity most in the US depend on every day. Although universal service has traditionally meant telephone service—first traditional wireline and then wireless telephony, in 2016, the Federal Communications Commission explicitly said that “broadband has evolved into the essential communications medium of the digital economy.” Today, according to the Pew Research Center, 85% of Americans have a smartphone. And smartphone access goes hand-in-hand with wireline broadband subscriptions at home for most Americans. The norm for internet access is using Wi-Fi at home off of a wireline subscription for many data-intensive applications, thereby conserving data allotments in mobile broadband plans for use on-the-go.

[John Horrigan is a Benton Senior Fellow and a national expert on technology adoption, digital inclusion, and evaluating the outcomes and impacts of programs designed to promote communications technology adoption and use]