Government should fund a competition for ISPs to win low-income c...

give $250 per new customer to the ISP that signs the most new subscribers in a low- income census tract in a single year. Under the approach, increasing broadband subscribership by 5 percent would cost $970 million, estimated Atkinson. A key advantage of the idea is that money would only be spent after a new customer signed up for broadband, maximizing accountability, he said. And the approach relies on market competition, encouraging “people out in the field [to] figure out the best way to do this,” he said. John Horrigan, the FCC broadband team’s consumer research director, said the proposal is “an interesting and provocative idea.” It could be improved by rewarding consumers in addition to ISPs, he said. For example, ISPs could reward customers who bring in other new low-income users to the fold, he said. Key to spurring adoption is “cultivating a social infrastructure around adoption and new adopters so that they really start to use the technology,” Horrigan said. Many consumers adopt technologies after hearing about it from a peer, he said. Atkinson said broadband adoption won’t happen on its own because people won’t want to pay what they do for a more critical public utility like electricity, and the technology is much tougher for new users to understand than telephony. “I don’t know anyone who would say a computer is a simple technology.”