Low-income

 This is the third in a series of articles looking at which providers are opting to offer services supported by the Affordable Connectivity Program. Here, Benton looks at the offerings of the largest wireless companies in the United States. According to wireless trade association CTIA, all three national providers and numerous regional providers support the Affordable Connectivity program—representing approximately 95% of existing wireless subscriptions and covering more than 99% of all Americans.

The National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) encouraged the Federal Communications Commission to involve trusted community organizations in outreach efforts for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). NDIA also addressed a pilot program focused on promoting ACP enrollment among households participating in Federal Public Housing Assistance programs. NDIA urged the FCC to:

A coalition of organizations focused on broadband policy, housing, and addressing challenges facing under-resourced communities in our nation’s cities and throughout the country (including the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society) called for urgent action to ensure unserved households in multifamily residential housing (MDUs) are correctly identified when broadband funding is allocated. In a letter to Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, the group, led by the national non-profit EducationSuperHighway, urged the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to use

Cox Communications will double the speeds of two services – ConnectAssist and Connect2Compete—from 50 Mbps to 100 Mbps on March 31. The cable company also said that it is participating in the federal government’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP). More than 500,000 are enrolled in the two Cox programs and will receive the higher speeds at no additional costs, Cox said. The ACP provides $30 towards broadband service for low-income households. The amount is $75 on Tribal lands. Cox said that applying the $30 subsidy will enable more subscribers to get the 100 Mbps service for free.

For the first time, Verizon is offering free Internet with its Fios Forward program to qualifying Affordable Connectivity Program customers. With Fios Forward and ACP, qualifying customers will have access to premium high-speed Internet without data caps, extra fees or equipment costs, helping them maintain connectivity for virtual learning, remote work, telehealth visits and more. Service has speeds starting at 200Mbps for downloads and uploads, crucial bandwidth for video-heavy applications.

When the pandemic hit, everything that could possibly be done online made the jump — work, job-hunting, school, doctor’s visits, and so on. The shift was hard for everyone, but many Americans didn’t even have the fundamental thing needed to make that change: a fast and reliable internet. People without internet access showed up at emergency rooms — during a pandemic — for non-emergencies, because they just weren’t able to do a video appointment. And when the time came, there was no refreshing a browser to find out where to get a vaccine.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau announced that it is implementing additional measures to strengthen program integrity surrounding the enrollment of households in the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) who also qualify for the Lifeline benefit. Consumer choice and consent are fundamental principles for both the Affordable Connectivity Program and the Lifeline program. No provider should undermine those principles or take advantage of consumers.

The Federal Communications Commission's Office of Inspector General alerted Lifeline, Emergency Broadband Benefit, and Affordable Connectivity Program consumers and providers to improper and abusive enrollment practices that are part of some providers’ online enrollment processes. These providers impermissibly coerce and deceive applicants for Lifeline service into enrolling in unwanted EBB/ACP service or into transferring their EBB/ACP service away from their preferred provider, contrary to the FCC Enforcement Bureau’s earlier Enforcement Advisory and FCC rules.

In July 2021, the Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau released its report on the state of the Lifeline marketplace. The aim of the report was to identify areas for FCC consideration regarding the continued transition of Lifeline from a program that primarily supports voice services to one with a greater focus on supporting broadband Internet access service. Unfortunately, there are three critical questions I noticed the FCC’s Lifeline report did not address:

Digital equity is having a moment. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the country to stay home in March 2020, the importance of digital equity became clear. While many folks had reliable high-speed Internet in their houses, up-to-date devices for accessing that Internet, and the skills to use it in meaningful ways, but across the country — in rural, suburban and urban communities — there was consistently a remaining percentage who did not.