Low-income
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'$30 Goes a Long Way': SNAP Households and the Affordable Connectivity Program
Recently, we surveyed over 1,700 Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) enrollees who use the Providers app about what the broadband benefit has meant to them and how their lives will change if it expires. Here’s what we found:
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Can Internet Service Providers Absorb the End of ACP?
State broadband offices are asking internet service providers interested in Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) funding to self-fund a $30 discount for low-income customers after the end of Affordable Connectivity Program. Since this request came from multiple states, I have to imagine the idea came from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. I can’t think of any better proof that policymakers are out of touch with the reality of rural business plans. Even providers that are successful in rural markets are going to have small margins.
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New Broadband Funding Opportunity for Rural Communities
This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Utilities Service (RUS) announced the latest window to receive applications for Rural eConnectivity (ReConnect) Program support to extend broadband networks in rural areas.
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A Future Without the ACP
February 8 marked the Affordable Connectivity Program’s enrollment freeze as the Federal Communications Commission prepares for it to run out of money in April. This is happening as ACP hit a major milestone—connecting 23 million households to get affordable, reliable access to America’s Excellent Internet. New stats from the White House show the true scope of the ACP’s impact:
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Digital Navigators and ACP Change Lives
The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) exists to help Americans of all stripes get and stay connected to America’s Excellent Internet. But for millions around the country, Internet access and a device alone aren’t enough to close the digital divide. Digital skills and tech support services offered through a trusted community organization is critical to solving this puzzle—just ask US Army veteran Bobby Jenks. After leaving the service as a decorated peacetime soldier, Bobby worked as a truck driver for 20 years until an accident left him unable to continue his trucking career.
Lawmakers rush to shore up internet subsidy program before it lapses
A group of lawmakers is making a major push to extend a key internet subsidy program in their upcoming government spending talks, part of a last-ditch effort to head off a lapse in funding. In recent days, top Democratic lawmakers and officials at the Federal Communications Commission have held numerous rallies calling for the $14 billion Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, to receive a new round of appropriations from Congress. The ACP “allowed some 23 million low-income households to receive discounts on their internet bills of up to $30 a month,” or higher for tribal lands.
North Carolina Moves Ahead With Broadband Equity Project Grants
North Carolina is moving forward with a digital equity grant program to bring broadband access into more underserved homes, as part of a larger mission to have all of these homes connected to the Internet by 2029. The North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s (NCDIT) Office of Digital Equity and Literacy will award $14 million in grants to community organizations such as local nonprofits, libraries, educational institutions and others.
Can the ACP keep the lights on? Maybe.
The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) well is about to run dry, but some analysts remain hopeful that the program may be able to secure additional funding. As the saying goes: it ain't over till it's over. To be sure, the odds are still favoring ACP funds running out, New Street Research’s Blair Levin said.
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Ending affordable internet is a gut punch to US prosperity
The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) helps 23 million American households afford the internet. But on February 8, the program began winding down due to a lack of funding. New households no longer can enroll. Soon, current households will confront a choice between bill shock and disconnection. We cannot let this happen. The ACP is the most effective program we’ve had in helping low-income Americans get online and stay online. Indeed, it has been the most successful program ever in our decades-long bipartisan effort to solve the digital divide.
23 Million Might Have to Re-Enroll in Affordable Connectivity Program
The digital inclusion program manager of a program to get people online warned during a press conference that if the Affordable Connectivity Program ends and later resumes, tens of millions of beneficiaries may have to manually re-enroll. Leslie Scott, digital inclusion program manager of KC Digital Drive, raised the concerns in a press conference hosted by advocates of renewing the ACP. Scott said that, during a Federal Communications Commission listening session, she and other observers were informed that if the ACP restarts after shutting down, 23 million program participants might have