A Simple Proposal to Help Rural Persistent Poverty Counties

Without affordable, high-quality broadband, persistent poverty counties in the United States have no chance. As a nation currently spending upwards of $100 billion in public funds on broadband, helping these counties is the least we can do. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) contains a provision that
offers broadband providers in high-cost areas $75 per subscriber. However, the provision has not yet been put into practice. It is being considered in an FCC regulatory proceeding, which may not be completed for quite some time. More troubling, the statutory language is oriented to the poverty of the broadband provider rather than the poverty of the people who could receive the benefit. For a household to receive the benefit, the service provider must show “particularized economic hardship to the provider such that the provider may not be able to maintain the operation” of the broadband network. The FCC, in interpreting this language, likely will award the enhanced ACP benefit only to households in high-cost areas where the provider is failing, rather than where the community has faced persistent poverty. Let’s try to replace the convoluted and nonsensical statutory language with something that is simple and commonsensical. First, the FCC should use one of its cost models (A-CAM or CAM) to determine which counties of the country are high-cost. Second, the FCC should provide a $75 monthly subsidy through the ACP to households in high-cost persistent poverty counties.

[Jonathan Chambers is a partner at Conexon.]