What Happens After the Affordable Connectivity Program?

It seems that almost every internet service provider (ISP) going for broadband grants is promising to offer a low-income program by promising to take part in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provides a $30 monthly discount on broadband rates for qualifying households. The discount is available for households earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. I love the idea of the ACP, but I think it’s already time to start the discussion of what happens when the ACP program runs out of money. By my quick math, the ACP will have paid out about $1.3 billion by the end of this April 2022. If the ACP runs out of money, the subsidy will stop. If the fund participants grow at the current rate, then 28 million homes would see an immediate $30 rate increase – one that, by definition, most of them can’t afford. The only way for the ACP to continue is for Congress to continue to fund it. If there are 20 million ACP participants, that’s a new annual federal subsidy program of $7.2 billion per year. At 30 million participants, it’s $10.8 billion per year. There are a whole lot of folks putting energy today into digital equity, and many of them tell me that the $30 discount really makes a difference to families. I’m sure many of them have done the same math as me and must be worried about what happens when the ACP runs out of money. Two years is almost no time in political terms, and anybody who wants the ACP to last more than two years needs to already be lobbying for the replacement funding.

[Doug Dawson is President of CCG Consulting.]