ACP Uptake is Strongest in Places Where It's Needed Most

Earlier this month, we released an updated version of the Affordable Connectivity Program Enrollment Performance Tool, with data current through October 2023, the most recent dataset the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) has posted on ACP enrollment. The downloadable USAC dataset shows that 21.6 million households had enrolled in the program through October 2023. The updated tool has a new feature that is likely to be helpful to many stakeholders—the inclusion of selected past enrollment numbers for each zip code. The tool will display the actual number of ACP subscribers for October 2023 as well as the predicted number (per the results of the tool’s underlying model). Additionally, the results for each zip code will include actual ACP enrollment levels for April 2023, December 2022, July 2022, and January 2022. Users interested in looking at trends in enrollment for particular zip codes will now have the data to do so. Two takeaways from the tool’s statistical analysis pertain to the enrollment dynamics in very low-income areas and rural America. As noted in analysis presented at the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference in September, there is a positive correlation between zip codes with a high share of households whose annual incomes are $15,000 or less and ACP enrollment. That finding controls for eligibility, population density, and other socio-economic indicators. This suggests there is a social dimension to enrolling in ACP, that is, even when taking eligibility criteria into account, places with a concentration of very low-income households are more likely to sign up for ACP. Word-of-mouth, it seems, is at play in places where lots of low-income people live and this helps foster a willingness to use the benefit. Rural areas also have greater-than-expected enrollment. Actual ACP enrollment exceeds expectations by 5% in rural America and overall enrollment (as a share of all households) is about the same in rural America as it is elsewhere. Some 16% of rural households have enrolled in ACP compared with 17 percent elsewhere.