Mississippi Ponders ACP Shutdown Impact on Closing Digital Divide

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is winding down and will end in April when the rest of its funding is expected to run out, unless Congress enacts legislation to refund it. Failing to renew ACP is expected to have a significant impact on tens of millions of households across the country and could adversely affect efforts to close the digital divide. According to Adeyinka Ogunlegan, Vice President, Government Affairs and Policy at EducationSuperhighway, "234,000 households in Mississippi are in jeopardy of having their connectivity either completely interrupted or seeing their internet service bills go up, depending on how they’re leveraging the benefit.” EducationSuperHighway’s data shows that over 20,000 Mississippi households are veteran households currently participating in ACP, 122,000 households are in rural parts of the state, and 72,000 are senior households. “These are critical communities that we know rely on internet access for so many things in terms of access to health care, money, businesses, keeping their children educated, and accessing all the resources that the internet provides all of us,” Ogunlegan said.