May 1 begins the final month that Affordable Connectivity Program households will receive any benefit on their internet bills. Without Congressional action to extend funding for the program, millions of Americans will see their internet bills go up or lose internet access at the end of this month. President Biden is once again calling on Republicans in Congress to join their Democratic colleagues in support of extending funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program, so tens of millions of Americans can continue to access this essential benefit. Losing the monthly ACP benefit will have drastic, meaningful impacts on American households, according to survey data collected by the Federal Communications Commission. More than 75 percent of surveyed ACP households say losing the benefit would disrupt their service by making them change their plan or drop internet service entirely. At this crucial time, the White House is encouraging providers to take steps to keep their consumers connected by offering low-cost or no-cost plans or providing discounts. 

At least two senators are demanding that a program subsidizing high-speed internet for lower-income families be extended as part of the airline safety bill making its way through the Senate. Sen J.D. Vance (R-OH) plans to keep the upper chamber from fast-tracking the bill, a five-year reauthorization of the Federal Aviation Administration, unless his amendment on the subsidy, known as the Affordable Connectivity Program, gets a vote on the Senate floor. Sen Peter Welch (D-VT), another lead co-sponsor, is also pressing leadership for a funding extension. Sen Vance called an amendment vote the most “plausible pathway at this point,” considering the dynamics of the committee, which has jurisdiction over the program. Sens Vance and Welch, along with a few other senators, co-sponsored legislation in January that would provide another $7 billion for the program, in effect extending it through the rest of 2024. Sen Vance said he would prevent the Senate from reaching an agreement to speed up FAA passage unless the measure gets a vote.

More than 23 million low-income American households will soon see a new line item in monthly expense statements: prohibitively expensive internet bills. For some, the new cost will eat into other essential areas of their budget—for others, it will mean going without the internet altogether. While the federal price tag for monthly internet subsidies under the Affordable Connectivity Program comes to $8.4 billion annually, our research indicates that, for low-income communities, the economic impact of losing the ACP will be more than twice that. Accounting for lost economic opportunities, education, telehealth services, and the internet subsidies themselves, vulnerable communities are projected to lose over $20 billion annually in economic benefits. Ensuring everyone in the United States, regardless of income level, has reliable access to high-speed internet service makes for a more resilient and competitive economy. Congress must take action to fund the ACP.

Elon Musk’s satellite internet service, Starlink, is expected to play a role in the Biden administration’s $42 billion program to bring high-speed internet to every American home, as Washington comes up against some hard math in its effort to build networks reaching the most remote corners of the nation. The growing discussion of using Starlink to fill in coverage gaps is an acknowledgment of just how expensive and challenging it would be to run new internet cables up every mountain and down every valley nationwide. The administration’s Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program also faces cost pressures from a “Made in America” requirement for construction materials. Alan Davidson, the head of the federal government’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which oversees the BEAD program, said fiber-optic cables will be deployed for most of the program. But Starlink is an option in extremely remote areas where it would be too pricey to run fiber. While each state is developing its own plan and selecting its own vendors, Davidson said he expects “many” of the state plans to include a provision that opens the door for Starlink to apply for the grants.

One of the messages Frontier aims to deliver in its new “Good to Go” ad campaign is that 100 percent fiber infrastructure can support subscribers now and into the future. The campaign was developed by McCann New York. The video illustrates the “changes in human experience over a lifetime” and suggests that a fiber-based broadband can be one of the few constants. The span of time includes 44 cell phones, 23 computers, 19 gaming systems, 256 shoes, 22 jobs, seven romantic partners and other changes. A Frontier ad campaign extolling the current and long term value of fiber is not surprising from a company that has made significant investments in fiber during the past year or so. Two examples: Frontier, along with Charter and seven smaller companies, won a combined $203 million in grants from Michigan’s ROBIN rural broadband funding program. Frontier North received a grant of $22.3 million for a project serving 4,690 locations in Branch County. In March, the company was awarded $24.7 million for fiber broadband deployments in Illinois.

Figuring out what you’ll actually pay for your home internet service each month has often been like trying to follow a recipe with an incomplete list of ingredients. There’s the advertised price, but what will you pay after the promotional period ends? What about the cost for the modem you have to rent? Or the overage fees if you exceed the data cap that’s hidden in the fine print? The true costs of a home internet plan must now be displayed up front due to a new government-mandated “broadband facts” label, modeled after the nutrition labels on packaged food, that internet service providers are required to include for each plan. These regulations require internet service providers to clear up confusion over their offerings by itemizing basic points of a service plan that might otherwise surprise subscribers after sign-up. “The new broadband label tells people the two most important things they need to know when they’re buying internet service, or any service: how much will they pay and what service will they get for that price,” Chhaya Kapadia, chief of staff at the Washington think tank New America’s Open Technology Institute. 

Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Ted Cruz (R-TX), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Katie Britt (R-AK) introduced new legislation to keep kids off social media and help protect them from its harmful impacts. The Kids Off Social Media Act updates legislation Schatz introduced last spring and would set a minimum age of 13 to use social media platforms and prevent social media companies from feeding algorithmically-targeted content to users under the age of 17. In addition to Schatz, Cruz, Murphy, and Britt, the Kids Off Social Media Act is cosponsored by Senators Peter Welch (D-VT)., Ted Budd (R-NC), John Fetterman (D-PA), Angus King (I-ME), and Mark Warner (D-VA). Specifically, the Kids Off Social Media Act would:

• Prohibit children under the age of 13 from creating or maintaining social media accounts, consistent with the current practices of major social media companies;
• Prohibit social media companies from pushing targeted content using algorithms to users under the age of 17;
• Provide the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general authority to enforce the provisions of the bill; and
• Follow existing Children's Internet Protection Act framework to require schools to block and filter social media on their federally funded networks, which many schools already do.

Slowing growth in the market for telecommunications services appears to be putting additional pressure on network operators in the US. Mergers and acquisitions are on the rise. Layoffs appear to be accelerating. Some US government subsidies are coming to an end. At least, that's one of the takeaways from recent first quarter earnings reports from the likes of Charter Communications, T-Mobile, Comcast, and Verizon. "The quarter is proving that Cable and Wireless are in the throes of market maturity, both facing a smaller pool with churn at historically low levels," wrote the financial analysts at TD Cowen in a recent note to investors. According to the financial analysts at TD Cowen, big cable companies like Charter and Comcast collectively lost 186,000 customers in the first quarter, ahead of their estimates of 141,000. Hovering over this is the apparent end of the US government's Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). It's unclear how that shifting subsidy landscape will affect a US broadband market that's showing signs of slowing.