Remarks of Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn, Connect South Carolina Community Technology Action Plan Event

The FCC’s latest efforts to quote “reform” the Lifeline Program, will actually decrease the availability of service less for those who stand to benefit the most. As you well know, connecting the unconnected is no easy task. Costs of just a couple dollars a month can be insurmountable for families that struggle to put food on the table each day. But what the FCC majority proposed to do earlier this month, is to take away no-cost service offerings, and eliminate the business model of 70% of providers in the current market
without specifying where existing consumers will go. It proposed to do the latter, by eliminating the reseller service option from the program. And that proposal is already being cemented this month in the majority’s reversal of the Open Internet Order, which will confirm that the only legal authority the FCC is willing to rely on for the program, is the one that allows only facilities-based providers to participate. Regardless of what side of the Open Internet or Net Neutrality debate you find yourself on, I would be hard-pressed to identify a recent FCC action with a more pointed attack on the economically disadvantaged, than this one.