The Senate Commerce Committee is at an impasse over funding the FCC’s affordable connectivity program, ranking member Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., told us Tuesday. Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Democrats haven't found enough willing Republicans and the soonest the committee could even consider a markup is the first week of June.
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.
Even in the face of slowing subscriber additions in Q1 for telcos' fiber service and fixed wireless access (FWA), cable net additions worsened, likely due to the affordable connectivity program (ACP) ending new enrollments and reenrollments for households that had received ACP support and then moved to a new address, MoffettNathanson's Craig Moffett wrote Monday. He said home broadband penetration stalled and perhaps even declined in the quarter, especially when adjusted for rural home growth subsidized under the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and for unsubsidized edgeouts. The FWA peak "has passed," with Q1 bringing its first year-over-year decline in subscriber net adds, he said. Fiber overbuilders are challenged as capital and labor costs are higher than when numerous projects were planned, while the most attractive areas are steadily being built out, he said. The U.S. broadband industry's total net adds in Q1 were the slowest since before the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. Broadband penetration increases during the pandemic were likely due to government subsidiary programs at the state and federal level, increasing affordability and bringing in numerous households that otherwise would have found the service outside their price range, he said.
Don’t wait to see if Congress finds funding for the affordable connectivity program (ACP), the Center for Accessible Technology (CforAT) urged the California Public Utilities Commission in comments Wednesday. The consumer group supported a petition from The Utility Reform Network (TURN) and the CPUC’s independent Public Advocates Office to modify a 2022 decision that made rules for the California commission’s federal funding account (FFA), which uses broadband funding from the U.S. government (see 2404150062). The petition “accurately highlights that the current FFA rules will become outdated shortly with the anticipated end of the ACP, and it reasonably requests that the Commission modify the FFA rules to support ongoing broadband affordability,” CforAT said in docket R.20-09-001. “The Commission should not delay based on the efforts currently underway to extend the ACP, as the fate of these efforts is uncertain, and the status quo would result in loss of service for program participants.” The CPUC can hit the brakes should ACP get money, it added. But the telecom industry said granting the petition would delay money going out the door to expand broadband. Also, the industry urged the CPUC to avoid using ACP's possible end as an excuse to relitigate settled issues, echoing comments it made days earlier on a separate TURN petition seeking changes to a different grant program (see 2405140037). Thanks to flexible FFA rules, the CPUC "received an unprecedented amount of interest with over 480 applications and at least two applications per county,” commented AT&T. Granting TURN and PAO’s petition will only further delay awards for the applications that already have been pending for eight months, said the carrier: But the CPUC must make awards by Dec. 24 or send the cash back to the U.S. Frontier Communications said the CPUC should “swiftly deny” the petition. "The Commission should not allow the state’s broadband infrastructure deployment objectives to be diverted or delayed by Petitioners’ agenda to revisit rejected policy proposals addressing affordability." AVX Networks and Cal.net piled on. “There is no reasonable basis to delay FFA awards indefinitely while the Commission considers whether to add a completely new requirement on FFA award recipients,” they said. A group of small rural local exchange carriers agreed. “This Petition would compromise the efficacy of this time-sensitive federal grant program, potentially squandering critical federal support for rural infrastructure deployment and impairing the state’s efforts to close the digital divide,” the LECs said.
The Senate Commerce Committee will try again next week to approve funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program (see 2405100046), Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., told us Thursday after the scheduled markup was pulled amid tensions with Republicans over amendments.
House Appropriations Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee members questioned FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel Thursday on the commission's funding request for increased staffing across the agency and the affordable connectivity program. During the hearing on the FCC's FY 2025 budget proposal (see 2403110056), some legislators raised concerns about the FCC's work on combating illegal robocalls and its spectrum authority.
NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson came under repeated fire Wednesday from House Republicans for low-cost offering requirements in the broadband equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program, with the lawmakers repeatedly charging -- and Davidson denying -- they amount to rate regulation. The House Communications Subcommittee oversight hearing also saw lawmakers chide one another across the aisle about the looming funding cliff of the affordable connectivity program (ACP).
The possible end of the federal affordable connectivity program (ACP) isn't an excuse to make sweeping changes to state broadband grant rules, ISPs told the California Public Utilities Commission this week. In Monday comments (docket R.20-08-021), AT&T, Frontier Communications, cable companies and small rural local exchange carriers urged the CPUC to swiftly reject last month’s The Utility Reform Network (TURN) petition to modify rules for the California Advanced Services Fund (CASF) broadband infrastructure account (see 2404150062).
The House is set to vote as soon as Tuesday night on a revised version of the NTIA Reauthorization Act (HR-4510) under suspension of the rules, the office of Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Friday night. The House Commerce Committee-cleared measure would elevate the NTIA administrator from assistant secretary to undersecretary of Commerce. It also proposes other steps aimed at improving coordination of federal spectrum (see 2307270063). Chamber leaders pulled HR-4510 from consideration in early March amid objections from leaders of the House Armed Services Committee over the fight between NTIA and DOD about allowing 5G use of the 3.1-3.45 GHz band (see 2403060062). In addition, the House will consider the Senate-passed FAA Reauthorization Act (HR-3935) amid questions about whether backers of additional funding for the FCC’s affordable connectivity program and Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program will attempt to attach money for those initiatives to it. Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M., and other senators unsuccessfully sought an amendment aimed at including $6 billion for ACP and $3.08 billion for rip and replace in HR-3935 (see 2405100046).
FCC commissioners approved a notice of apparent liability of $8 million against K20 Wireless “for apparently willfully and repeatedly violating” affordable connectivity program rules. Also, the carrier will be removed from the program. “From at least June 2022 to May 2023, K20 sought and received ACP Tribal lands support for subscribers who were not eligible for those benefits,” said an order posted Friday. “For approximately 50 percent of these subscribers, the Company, after switching the subscriber’s ACP enrollment to K20, then changed the subscriber’s existing non-Tribal lands home address to a false address on Tribal lands not associated in any way with that subscriber,” the order said: “K20 then sought ACP reimbursement for those subscribers at the rate available for consumers residing on Tribal lands.”
House Republicans pushed back during a Friday Communications Subcommittee field hearing in Bakersfield, California, against calls for Congress to allocate stopgap funding to the FCC’s ailing affordable connectivity program and the rollout of NTIA’s $42.5 billion broadband equity, access and deployment program. ACP supporters believe they made progress last week toward securing a path that keeps the program funded in FY 2024 despite proposals attaching funding to the FAA Reauthorization Act (HR-3935) failing in the Senate (see 2405100046).