Even though plenty of people are worried about the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) running out of funds by the end of this year, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is moving forward with two new pilot programs to help people sign up for ACP.
ACP is an FCC program that provides a discount of up to $30 per month toward internet service for eligible households. And those households can also receive a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop computer or tablet from participating providers.
The Wireline Competition Bureau of the FCC announced 34 entities selected for the ACP pilot programs, which are aimed at providing outreach and application assistance to ACP-eligible households.
The two ACP Pilot Programs are:
- The Your Home, Your Internet program, which is focused on ACP outreach and application support to recipients of federal housing assistance;
- The ACP Navigator program, which provides selected entities access to the National Verifier to help low-income households complete and submit their ACP application.
The bureau selected 23 entities for the Your Home, Your Internet pilot program, and 11 entities for the ACP Navigator program. The pilots are slated to span one year.
These entities will receive the requirements for obtaining access to the National Verifier, relevant training and the available FCC ACP outreach resources.
It’s interesting that the bureau focused on affordable housing authorities for its Your Home, Your Internet pilot. But it makes a lot of sense given that affordable housing projects have a lot of units and residents who would likely qualify for ACP.
ACP funding
It’s not just low-income people who benefit from ACP. Service providers also benefit because they can sign up new subscribers, who previously may not have had broadband service. The new subs get the $30 discount on their monthly plans, and the service providers get reimbursed this money from the government.
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Consultant Michael O’Reilly, who is a former FCC commissioner, is an advocate for ACP. While he admits that broadband providers do benefit from ACP with new subscribers, he says ACP is a very efficient subsidy mechanism.
“I’m going to work really hard to build a mindset that it’s a functional program to be extended,” O’Reilly told Fierce.
O’Reilly and other advocates of ACP have their work cut out for them because Congress can’t seem to agree on much, lately. It hasn’t even been able to reinstate the FCC’s spectrum auction authority – something that has basically been a no-brainer for 30 years.
But O’Reilly said, “Congress is going to look pretty bad if this gets defunded.”
According to the FCC’s tracker, as of today there are more than 17 million households enrolled in ACP.
“I don’t know that Congress wants to dump all those people,” said O’Reilly. "The big blame is going to go onto Congress.”