Wednesday, April 1, 2026

Digital Beat

Is New York’s Affordable Broadband Act Working?

A First Look at Internet Service Provider Compliance Reports

New York State’s Affordable Broadband Act (ABA), enacted in 2021, took effect in January 2025 after years of legal challenges. The law requires internet service providers (ISPs) with over 20,000 subscribers to offer a low-cost broadband plan to eligible consumers. ISPs are responsible for advertising the program and verifying consumer eligibility in accordance with the law.

The ABA is nationally significant, as it is the first state law of its kind. Other state legislatures have followed New York in considering and enacting similar policies, so an understanding of ABA’s effects is useful to project impacts in other states.

All ISPs required to offer ABA plans must file a compliance report with the New York Public Service Commission (PSC) by November 15 of each year. The compliance report template requires ISPs to submit descriptions of ABA-compliant plans, subscriber counts, procedures for verifying eligibility, descriptions and samples of promotional and advertising materials, among other items. Sixteen ISPs’ reports from 2025 offer the first publicly available data on ABA implementation; however, ISPs used confidentiality procedures to varying extents, which limit what can be known about ABA’s effects.

T-Mobile’s public report, for example, declares most of the information to be confidential, except a simple description of the ABA-compliant service plan and several URLs that list pricing on T-Mobile’s consumer-facing website. Even a description of procedures for verifying consumer eligibility, such as listing the types of documentation consumers can provide to demonstrate eligibility, is treated as confidential.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society submitted a public information request to the New York PSC to obtain redacted data from compliance reports, namely enrollment counts and information on arrearages and service terminations. Because of significant confidentiality limitations, the reports provide only basic information about the law’s implementation, not enough to understand its effectiveness. 

Did the ABA Lead to New Affordable Plans?

Prior to ABA, some ISPs already offered low-cost broadband plans in New York State. Merger orders had already required three large ISPs, Comcast, Charter Communications and Altice (now known as Optimum), to offer such plans. In addition, other ISPs operating in the state, like Verizon, had voluntarily offered low-cost broadband plans prior to ABA taking effect.

Compliance reports show that six ISPs (Frontier, Greenlight, Fishers Island Telephone Corporation, Point Broadband, SpaceX, and Windstream) did not offer a low-cost broadband plan prior to ABA enactment. Two ISPs (T-Mobile and Starry) did not provide relevant information in their documentation, while eight others reported that they had previously offered a low-cost plan, even if not fully compliant with ABA requirements for speed and price.

In short, ABA prompted some ISPs, including small and large incumbents and new entrants, to offer new affordable internet service plans. Providers that previously offered affordable plans aligned their pricing and speeds with the law's requirements.

How Many Households Subscribe to ABA Plans?

We cannot say.

Of the sixteen ISP compliance reports filed with the NY PSC in 2025, eight treated the number of ABA subscribers as non-confidential. A ninth ISP voluntarily furnished a household enrollment count (redacted in the public report) directly to the Benton Institute. These reports indicate that 1,253 New York households enrolled in ABA broadband plans in 2025. Of course, that figure does not take into account enrollment numbers filed confidentially by the state’s largest ISPs: T-Mobile, Optimum, Verizon, and Charter. One ISP offering service on the scale of the largest ISPs, SpaceX, reports just 11 households subscribed to its ABA plan. It is not necessarily a good yardstick to estimate subscriptions at other large ISPs, though, because of differences associated with technology type (low-Earth orbit satellite).

For comparison, an estimated 1.2 million households in New York State receive SNAP benefits. Households that are eligible for or are enrolled in SNAP are eligible for ABA plans (among other pathways to eligibility), so the universe of possible enrollment in ABA plans is of a similar magnitude.

ABA compliance reports must also include enrollment counts broken down by county. ABA plans are available and appear to be enrolled in every county of the state.

Missing information prevents a clear assessment of how well enrollment figures line up with estimates of eligible households or a diagnosis of where outreach might be useful.

Is Outreach Working?

We cannot say.

New York State’s broadband office, ConnectALL, has funded (initially announced to the tune of $3 million) an outreach campaign to publicize the availability of ABA plans and to assist eligible households with enrollment.^[5] ConnectALL has partnered with New York City and state agencies on an outreach strategy that includes materials for consumers and support from NYC’s 3-1-1 hotline. The state also provided $500,000 for United Way New York’s 2-1-1 helpline to screen and assist callers with ABA enrollment.^[6]

Without data from the largest ISPs in the state, including their county-by-county enrollment numbers, observers cannot analyze whether the state’s outreach resources are resulting in household enrollment. For example, without such data, policymakers cannot determine if the resources devoted to NYC’s 3-1-1 hotline translated into ABA plan enrollment in the five counties that make up New York City.

Providers are required to submit “a description and samples of the advertising or marketing efforts undertaken to advertise or promote [ABA] service.” Compliance reports suggest that many ISPs are placing information about their ABA-compliant plans on their own websites. Few ISPs reported any additional activity to advertise or promote their plans. Some providers are conducting outreach at multi-dwelling units they serve (for example, Andrena and Greenlight), and others (Comcast, Optimum) are using print, radio, or other forms of advertising beyond their websites. Several ISPs reported including a message about the ABA plan in an annual bill to existing subscribers.

Is the Law Working?

Again, we cannot say.

In response to our public information request, most ISPs that had initially sought data confidentiality also filed Statements of Necessity to maintain confidentiality. The New York State Department of Public Service Records Access Officer determined that for ISPs that had filed a Statement of Necessity, no further disclosure was necessary, based on the determination that requested information constitutes “trade secrets or are submitted to an agency by a commercial enterprise. . . which if disclosed would cause substantial injury to the competitive position of the subject enterprise.”

The Public Service Records Access Officer’s determination presents a conflict between the state’s interest to maximize the enrollment of eligible subscribers in such plans and ISPs’ interest to preserve the competitive advantage gained through enrollment (or non-enrollment) of low-income New Yorkers in ABA plans.

One ISP’s Statement of Necessity filed in response to our request states that releasing ABA enrollment data “provides an opportunity to obtain an advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.” At the heart of ISPs’ contention here is that data regarding market-rate subscribers is not made available in a similar way. Public enrollment figures might allow competitors to target the same eligible households that are not enrolled. That some ISPs publicly filed enrollment counts indicates that the perceived risk to competitive advantage or the magnitude of injury is not uniform across ISPs. 

Characterizing competitive advantage or competitive position is not straightforward either. ABA plan subscribers generate less revenue than subscribers to market-rate plans. Low-income households may also face tough decisions about paying a broadband bill as other essential expenses increase in price. The end of another broadband affordability policy, the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), negatively affected some large ISPs’ earnings and subscriber totals. ABA differs from ACP in at least two important ways. First, ISPs are not receiving any funding from the government to subsidize low-income subscribers. Second, a repeal of the ABA is the means by which ABA plan subscribers might drop out of an ISP’s subscription base. The magnitude of ABA-related losses would depend on how many ABA subscribers an ISP takes on, the provision of alternative low-cost plans, and other factors.

Why Information Gaps Matter

Though the Benton Institute expects that some information from compliance reports will be made public by those ISPs that did not submit a Statement of Necessity, the complete picture of ABA effectiveness will be known only to the PSC. The full compliance reports include additional detail on ABA plan subscriptions, such as how many customers with ABA plans are in arrears and/or have had service terminated for non-payment for broadband or other services, like cable television or phone service. This information would be valuable for understanding whether households that enroll in ABA plans stay connected over time.

Overall, the situation places advocates in a frustrating position, as they cannot and will not know where outreach and enrollment assistance are most needed or would have the greatest impact on low-income New Yorkers.^[7] States pursuing similar policies also cannot draw any evidence-based conclusions about the relative merits of mandating that ISPs provide affordable broadband plans.

Because the Department of Public Service finds enrollment data to constitute trade secret and confidential commercial information, the public must trust that the NY PSC is adequately enforcing compliance with the ABA. There is no meaningful opportunity to learn if the law is making a material difference in the lives of New Yorkers, nor to target outreach to those who the benefits have not reached.

The Benton Institute for Broadband & Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to ensuring that all people in the U.S. have access to competitive, High-Performance Broadband regardless of where they live or who they are. We believe communication policy - rooted in the values of access, equity, and diversity - has the power to deliver new opportunities and strengthen communities.

© Benton Institute for Broadband & Society 2026. Redistribution of this email publication - both internally and externally - is encouraged if it includes this copyright statement.

For subscribe/unsubscribe info, please email headlinesATbentonDOTorg

Kevin Taglang
Executive Editor, Communications-related Headlines
Benton Institute
for Broadband & Society
1041 Ridge Rd, Unit 214
Wilmette, IL 60091
847-220-4531
headlines AT benton DOT org

Share this edition:

Broadband Delivers Opportunities and Strengthens Communities