Free Press Tells New FCC Leadership That Affordability Is the Key to Bridging the Digital Divide

Free Press delivered a letter to the Federal Communications Commission urging the agency’s new leadership to take serious strides toward closing the digital divide by making broadband more affordable. New FCC Chairman Ajit Pai recently claimed that closing the divide was going to be “one of his core priorities” during his tenure.

The Free Press letter commends Chairman Pai for this new focus, but strikes a note of caution given his prior track record as a commissioner. “No matter how laudable the new chairman’s sentiment may be, his proposals to close that divide could be ineffective — and even harmful,” Free Press warns. “The Commission must not subsidize build-out that is already occurring in the market, and yet not even address the primary structural barrier keeping tens of millions of people offline: affordability of the services already available to them.” ”Our research contains many similar findings that all point to the same conclusion: the root cause of the adoption gap is the lack of affordability, and that is an outcome created primarily by a market structure that produces too few affordable choices and suboptimal competition. The adoption gap is an affordability gap,” the Free Press letter reads. Pai’s preliminary plan focuses on giving significant tax breaks to the handful of ISPs that control the broadband-access marketplace. Pai proposes using taxpayer dollars to fund the construction of gigabit networks in below-average-income neighborhoods, despite the fact that most of these deployment projects are already underway. His plan does nothing to make these services affordable.