Tuesday, February 6, 2024
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Biden’s vow of affordable internet for all is threatened by the looming expiration of subsidies
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Digital Equity
President Joe Biden traveled in January to North Carolina to promote his goal of affordable internet access for all Americans, but the promise for 23 million families across the US is on shaky ground. That’s because the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides $30 a month for qualifying families in most places and $75 on tribal lands, will run out of money by the end of April if Congress doesn’t extend it further. The program is key to the Biden administration’s plans to make the internet available to everyone, which the president has touted repeatedly as he has ramped up his reelection campaign. He has likened it to the Rural Electrification Administration, the New Deal program that delivered electricity to much of rural America in the 1930s. If the program expires, participating families, including nearly 900,000 in North Carolina, will either lose internet access or have to pay more to stay connected.
Color Of Change is the nation’s largest online racial justice organization, representing millions of members nationwide. If your Administration does not take action to replenish funds for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), millions of families, including Black families, will lose access to affordable, high-speed internet along with all of its benefits. Broadband remains unaffordable for millions, including the 1 out of 5 Black people who do have home internet. Regardless of rising wages, employment rates, or other economic indicators which suggest that this is an improved economy, taking away a critical benefit that many communities, particularly Black communities, have come to rely on will only exacerbate crises in their lives. Color Of Change applauds the Administration for prioritizing economic advancement in the Black community. However, more work is needed. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which enhances access to education, telehealth, employment, and more, is crucial for Black families. The prospect of losing this benefit represents an unnecessary setback. ACP is one of the most tangible ways that Black communities have felt the wins of this Administration. As your Administration gears up for the upcoming election, I encourage you to remember the communities, particularly Black communities, who rallied and voted for you.
Empowering Black Communities: The Essential Role of the Affordable Connectivity Program in Enhancing Digital Equity
In our increasingly connected world, dependable and reasonably priced internet access is an essential lifeline. However, on February 7, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will end enrollments for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), a broadband affordability program benefitting over 20 million households. In April 2024, the FCC expects the program to run out of funding and end support for enrolled households. The ACP aims to increase broadband affordability by providing eligible households with discounts on internet services and devices. This program is especially beneficial in Black communities, where the need for affordable connectivity is high. A Joint Center analysis found that from 2015-2019, about one in five Black students lacked home broadband access. The ACP makes broadband access more economically feasible, fostering greater participation in the digital economy and contributing to the overall economic development of Black communities. It’s essential to continue supporting and enhancing initiatives like the ACP to ensure that no one is left behind in our increasingly connected world.
Mobile operators will feel a financial twinge if the FCC's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) is shut down this spring, but the cut won't cause extreme bleeding when it comes to subscribers, revenues and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization). Those are the findings in a New Street Research study that follows similar analysis of the potential impact on the wireline sector if ACP is discontinued. Mobile ACP recipients are heavily weighted towards the nation's fragmented group of mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs), a situation that might put pressure on large mobile network operators, particularly T-Mobile and Verizon, depending on how their MVNO customers react if and when the program is shut down. New Street's Jonathan Chaplin predicted that the biggest impact in that area will be on T-Mobile (6.42 million subs, or 87 percent of that total), and AT&T (929,000 subs, or 13 percent), with no impact on Verizon and Dish in that category.
The White House Office of Management and Budget's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has scored four forms that will be part of the Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program. The four forms are: Application, Consolidated Budget, Digital Equity Plan Amendments, and Specific Projects. OIRA has calculated how many hours it will take to complete each form. OIRA is the United States Government’s central authority for the review of Executive Branch regulations, approval of Government information collections, establishment of Government statistical practices, and coordination of Federal privacy policy. OIRA reviews and approves Government collections of information from the public under the Paperwork Reduction Act, and oversees the implementation of Government-wide policies in the areas of information policy, privacy, and statistical policy.
Reps Andrew Clyde (R-GA) and Buddy Carter (R-GA) led 65 House Republicans in introducing a Congressional Review Act (CRA) joint resolution of disapproval to overturn the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) new "digital discrimination" rule. On November 15, 2023, the FCC finalized a new rule to “prevent digital discrimination of access to broadband services.” The rule hands the Biden Administration’s bureaucratic state effective control of all internet services and infrastructure in the US—giving the FCC unchecked unconstitutional authority to implement regulations restricting every aspect of the telecommunications industry.
Patricia Pereira, an 80-year old woman living in Camp Seco, California, is cut off from 911 and other essential services. At the beginning of 2023, Pereira asked AT&T if landline service could be transferred from a neighboring home to hers. Instead of transferring the service, AT&T cut the copper lines dead on both properties. Pereira lives in a dead zone and barely receives cellular signals. This is happening in rural AT&T areas across the country. AT&T is walking away from rural copper facilities that provide landline telephone and DSL broadband. I’m sure that the rural AT&T copper networks are old and in poor condition, but that's not the whole story. State regulatory commissions have not been doing their job. AT&T and other telephone companies have been operating under regulations that include the concept of carrier-of-last-resort, which means that the telephone companies are obligated to provide customers with voice service. If the California Public Service Commission was enforcing the carrier-of-last-resort rules, it would make sure that customers have cell coverage at home before allowing AT&T to walk away from the copper.
Broadband Funding
Reps Markey, Van Hollen, and Meng Lead Colleagues in Letter of Support for FCC E-Rate Rulemaking
Sens Edward Markey (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Rep Grace Meng (D-NY), led 64 of their colleagues in a letter to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel supporting the Commission’s proposal to expand the E-Rate program to allow schools and libraries to loan out Wi-Fi hotspots to students and educators. In their letter, the lawmakers specifically call for the expansion and modernization of the E-Rate hotspot program to help reduce educational disparities and ensure that low-income students are no longer left behind. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that low-income students who lack internet access at home face significant disadvantages in school, compared to upper- and middle-class students. A study in Michigan found that students without internet access at home received lower grades than their classmates. E-Rate expansion will help maintain the progress made through the Emergency Connectivity Fund, a $7 billion program that Sens Markey and Van Hollen and Rep Meng created as part of the American Rescue Plan to provide devices and connectivity for students and educators at home.
ACA Connects, Fiber Broadband Association, NTCA Encourage NTIA to Retain Congressional Priority for Fiber Projects in BEAD Proposals
ACA Connects–America’s Communications Association, the Fiber Broadband Association, and NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, and the Fiber Broadband Association encouraged the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to “stand its ground” in prioritizing fiber projects and maximizing the deployment of fiber networks as Congress intended under the Broadband Access, Equity, and Deployment (BEAD) program amid calls for the agency to reject or weaken initial proposals submitted by some states and territories. In a letter to NTIA Assistant Secretary Alan Davidson, the associations called on NTIA to ensure states and territories fulfill their responsibilities to connect all eligible locations to high-performance broadband service and to prioritize all-fiber builds, as directed by Congress in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The associations explained how this vision can be realized using a data-driven analysis and taking into account the efforts of other broadband funding initiatives as well.
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) awarded nearly $223 million to expand broadband internet access to Floridians, including small and rural communities. This funding includes $135 million in state funding through the Broadband Opportunity Program and $86 million in federal funds through the Multipurpose Community Facilities Program. Awards through the Broadband Opportunity Program will support 54 projects in 33 Florida counties for broadband internet expansion that will provide internet to over 27,000 unserved residential, educational, agricultural, business and community locations. Awards through the Multipurpose Facility Program will support 29 community infrastructure projects including health clinics, schools and workforce development programs providing internet to Floridians across 18 counties.
GoNetspeed announced that 100 percent fiber internet is now available to Old Saybrook residents located in initial construction areas. Old Saybrook’s residents and businesses can now experience fast, reliable internet and voice service for their home or business, through GoNetspeed’ fully-funded $3.6 million investment in infrastructure. Once construction of the 100 percent fiber optic infrastructure is complete, more than 4,400 homes and businesses will have the opportunity to experience GoNetspeed’s multi-gigabit fiber internet speeds, allowing customers to upload just as fast as they download. GoNetspeed continues to ensure that more communities throughout Connecticut have access to a high-speed 100 percent fiber internet infrastructure. Currently, more than 30 communities across the state have access to GoNetspeed’s service, along with many communities that are well on their way to having access to GoNetspeed’s fiber internet.
Google will no longer be keeping a backup of the entire Internet. Google Search's "cached" links have long been an alternative way to load a website that was down or had changed, but now the company is killing them off. Google "Search Liaison" Danny Sullivan confirmed the feature removal in an X post, saying the feature "was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn't depend on a page loading. These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it." The feature has been appearing and disappearing for some people since December, and currently, we don't see any cache links in Google Search. For now, you can still build your own cache links even without the button, just by going to "https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:" plus a website URL, or by typing "cache:" plus a URL into Google Search. All of Google's support pages about cached sites have been taken down.
Mears Broadband, a fiber network construction contractor, has launched as a standalone company just in time to support the flood of broadband deployment slated for later in 2024. For the last five years, Mears Broadband was a division of Mears Group, a subsidiary of Quanta Services that provides construction services for fiber broadband projects. CEO Trent Edwards explained the untethering will allow Mears Broadband to make decisions without impacting the 13 other companies within Mears Group. For example, if Mears Broadband decides to enter contract agreements with unions, it can do so without impacting other organizations. Edwards said launching Mears Broadband as an independent entity could be a “very big deal within the industry,” considering how much investment is about to materialize into broadband construction across the country. Particularly, the launch comes in preparation for states to begin building through the federal $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program – what Edwards refers to as “the great build.”
Benton (www.benton.org) provides the only free, reliable, and non-partisan daily digest that curates and distributes news related to universal broadband, while connecting communications, democracy, and public interest issues. Posted Monday through Friday, this service provides updates on important industry developments, policy issues, and other related news events. While the summaries are factually accurate, their sometimes informal tone may not always represent the tone of the original articles. Headlines are compiled by Kevin Taglang (headlines AT benton DOT org), Grace Tepper (grace AT benton DOT org), and Zoe Walker (zwalker AT benton DOT org) — we welcome your comments.
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