Low-income

The Federal Communications Commission is partnering with the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) and the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA) to acknowledge Lifeline Awareness Week, September 20-24, 2021. Lifeline is an FCC program designed to help make communications services more affordable for low-income consumers.

Comcast announced new steps to help advance digital equity for even more students and families.

Do you have concerns about whether students and families in your community or school have adequate, consistent access to the internet and digital devices?

The Emergency Broadband Benefit Program continues to have a positive impact on many communities nationwide, but persistent challenges to accessing the benefit limit full participation.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, of the nearly $3.2 billion in available funds for the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program only $378 million has been allocated so far. That leaves more than $2.7 billion still available to help low-income households get broadband service at a reduced cost, according to the FCC tracker page.

Acting Federal Communications Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said she’s pleased that the Senate infrastructure deal would codify the pandemic relief program known as the Emergency Broadband Benefit — but she is wary about one provision that would slash the monthly internet subsidy by 40 percent. “I do think it would be challenging for the agency to reduce the support from $50 a month to $30 a month,” she said.

The head of the Federal Communications Commission left the door open to taking further actions to ensure everyone has broadband access — including price regulation and combating digital redlining. Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said at Politico's Tech Summit that the FCC is “laser-like focused on getting this service to everyone, everywhere,” and that it is trying to take a broader approach to the issue than the agency had in the past.

Cities and urban counties across the US are raising concerns that a recent rule from President Biden’s administration could preclude them from tapping into $350 billion of coronavirus relief aid to expand high-speed internet connections. The American Rescue Plan includes broadband infrastructure among the primary uses for pandemic aid flowing to each city, county and state. But an interim rule published by the US Treasury Department has narrowed the broadband eligibility.

Pew Research Center released a sweeping report looking at how Americans have used the internet in the pandemic, how reliant they were on digital tools, and some of the struggles they have had as they tried to conduct many of the work-related, educational, social and community activities of their lives online. The headlines from the survey included:

Only an estimated one in seven eligible households have enrolled in the Federal Communications Commission's Emergency Broadband Benefit Program so far. The majority of those who have received the benefit were grandfathered in through Lifeline, an existing federal subsidy program aimed primarily at telephone users.