FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez told us during an exclusive Communications Daily Q&A that evaluating assessments made on consumers' bills as part of funding the Universal Service Fund is her top issue amid calls for contribution reform (see 2404190043). Sworn in in September, Gomez also mentioned concerns about USF's future and the affordable connectivity program. She also urged ISPs to create their digital equity plans with "intentionality."
Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP)
What is the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP)?
The Affordable Connectivity Program was a recently expired subsidy for low-income households to lower the cost of purchasing broadband internet and connected devices. The program was signed into law as part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and administered by the FCC up until June 1, 2024, due to expiration of the ACP’s funding.
Will the ACP Return?
Congress continues to debate restoring ACP funding, with immediate next steps likely to come from the Senate Commerce Committee or Congressional discussions on revising the Universal Service Fund.
Cash-strapped California has many challenges ahead as it seeks to connect everyone to broadband, said state, local and industry officials Wednesday at the livestreamed California Broadband Summit. Assembly Communications Committee Chair Tasha Boerner (D) said she has several concerns with state broadband policy, including that the California Public Utilities Commission is taking too long to distribute last-mile grants.
The California Public Utilities Commission should freeze California LifeLine specific support amounts (SSA) until state regulators and stakeholders can find a better way of calculating them, a consumer group and low-income wireless service providers said in comments Monday. The CPUC is considering freezing the SSA at $19 for wireline and wireless providers (see 2405070050). Meanwhile, consumer advocates defended their petition for temporary bridge funding through LifeLine that would help cover the loss of federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) support.
The Senate Commerce Committee is eyeing additional changes to the Spectrum and National Security Act (S-4207) in hopes of jump-starting its prospects as a viable vehicle for resurrecting the FCC’s expired affordable connectivity program, lobbyists said in interviews. Committee leaders are hoping further revisions will allow them to raise S-4207 during a potential mid-June meeting, lobbyists told us. Senate Commerce pulled S-4207 from consideration twice last month, including fully postponing a May 16 executive meeting (see 2405160066). The Biden administration and FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel made a final call Friday for Congress to keep ACP running as the program’s time expired.
The FCC Wireline Bureau and Office of Economics and Analytics released a summary of data associated with the affordable connectivity program (see 2405200010). A Thursday public notice in docket 21-450 included data on the "price, subscription rates, and plan characteristics" of the service offerings of ACP providers. The data released was a "snapshot" of the services nearly 20 million households were receiving as of Aug. 1. The bureaus said that 1,600 providers submitted plan and subscription data at the ZIP code level. The FCC made the data available at the nationwide level on "plan characteristics across all ACP households." State level data shows the average base monthly prices of plans for households "enrolled within designated download speed tiers and data on the number of subscribers of plans within those tiers." County and ZIP code level data included the average base monthly price and subscription rates for fixed and mobile service.
It wouldn’t be an “unfunded mandate” to require ISPs to have $15 affordable broadband plans as a condition of getting support from the California Public Utilities Commission’s federal funding account (FFA), The Utility Reform Network said Tuesday. TURN replied in docket R.20-09-001 to industry objections to the group’s petition asking the CPUC to pause FFA grants until it modifies rules to account for the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) winding down (see 2405160055). "The courts have previously held that funding conditions for voluntary programs are permissible; funding conditions are not unfunded mandates or rate regulations,” said TURN. "Providers are free to decline FFA participation and instead charge customers whatever they wish.” Existing ISP-designed affordable plans are no substitute for ACP, added the consumer group: Such industry plans "tend to have significantly more restrictive eligibility requirements than the ACP and therefore will not be available to all ACP recipients.” TURN has two other petitions related to ACP's end (see 2405240060).
Broadband access, equity and deployment program funding is flowing more slowly than expected and likely won’t start in mid-2025 as originally expected, Diana Eisner, USTelecom vice president-policy and advocacy, said during a Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy webcast Wednesday. Most of the money will start to flow in mid-2026 or later, she predicted. It could even be the second half of 2026, she said.
Despite expectations that the affordable connectivity program (ACP) will run dry in days, telecom companies continued arguing in comments last week that the California Public Utilities Commission should take its time forming its response. However, while larger ISPs slammed consumer advocates' proposal, small local exchange carriers said they would work with the advocates on a compromise that quickly expands California LifeLine support to broadband.
T-Mobile views the loss of the affordable connectivity program as a larger concern for cable than for the wireless industry, CEO Mike Sievert said Tuesday during a J.P. Morgan financial conference. “Our operating assumption is that it goes away,” though there could be a “Hail Mary” to restore the program, he said (see 2405210056). “I do not believe [ACP's ending] will result in people disconnecting their mobile service,” Sievert added. He stressed the importance of Congress reauthorizing the FCC’s auction authority, which, like ACP, lawmakers are considering. “Our nation's competitiveness depends upon our networks being the best in the world, and we can't afford to sit and watch while other countries ... deploy spectrum in a smarter way,” he said. T-Mobile has the spectrum it needs short term and has yet to deploy “in a material way” the licenses it bought in the C-band auction, he said. “We have lots of room to run” and “we’re really well positioned.” Sievert said that while T-Mobile is investing in fiber (see 2404250047) the carrier is happy with its current business model and loves being “the nation's leading mostly wireless pure play company.” In addition, Sievert said he’s not worried about a potential downturn in the consumer wireless market. “Doesn't matter whether the market is rapidly growing or not because most of our business comes from share taking,” he said: “If the market is rapidly growing … we'll partake in that. If it's growing more slowly, we won't be harmed.”
Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg offered more clarity Tuesday about the carrier’s view of its spectrum needs. The wireless industry eventually will need more licensed spectrum for the U.S. to remain “competitive” with other markets, particularly Asia, Vestberg said during a J.P. Morgan financial conference. “You need predictability, you need ownership, you need spectrum” to justify investments, he said. Like Sowmyanarayan Sampath, Verizon Consumer Group CEO, who mentioned the issue last week (see 2405140055), Vestberg said the company doesn’t face short-term needs, with an average of 161 MHz of C-band in markets nationwide, about half of which is now in use. “I sit really good on the 161 MHz of C-band that we bought,” he said. On another issue, Vestberg said the end of the affordable connectivity program is bad news. The program “is very important for the U.S. economy,” he added. Verizon has about 1.1 million customers receiving ACP funding, he said. Low-income families “should have a possibility to have broadband wireless,” he said, noting other Verizon programs can serve them. Vestberg also said the wireless industry's importance is “sort of underestimated.” Wireless and broadband “are two of the most essential and critical services for people, for organizations, for companies,” he said. People need broadband to work, for education, to access healthcare and to “have some joy in life,” he said. Vestberg said network slicing will be critical to the launch of private networks. Slicing will allow the setup of a private network “probably 10 times faster than … today, because today I need to break out part of the radio network and part of the core network,” he said: “In the future, I can just do a slice and I can probably do it in hours.”