The end of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) created costs and tensions for beneficiaries that went beyond their losing the $30-per-month service subsidy. In a series of in-depth interviews from the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society and conducted by SSRS, Inc., participants lamented the program’s end while also expressing frustration with increased monthly internet costs and a dearth of low-cost options in the market.

Their reactions fell into three categories: 

1. Frustration over lack of choice in service providers that limited their ability to find budget-friendly alternatives once their ACP subsidies ended. There is a sense that society is effectively telling people they must have service, yet does not give them adequate service options that are both affordable and of sufficient quality.
2. Contending with lower quality of service that was the result of having to switch to a different plan. This has limited students’ ability to do homework and caused problems in carrying out telehealth visits for patients with limited mobility.
3. Cutting back on other expenditures as part of a difficult balancing act to maintain connectivity. This includes forgoing visits to the doctor or picking up side jobs to keep internet service on at home. The balancing act is precarious and not always successful, as the ACP’s end has led to service disconnections for some.

Participants in the interviews were members of low-income households that had used the ACP benefit to help defray monthly service costs. They were well attuned to societal changes that have made at-home internet service essential. These changes were not just about the pandemic but also included changes in their children’s educational experiences and how people interact with health care providers. This made the ACP a real aid to manage a tight household budget in the midst of having to do more things online. When the ACP ended, the question for most people was not whether to keep service but how to keep it while juggling other household needs.

The ”how” of keeping service typically meant downgrading service to a more affordable plan. This created additional challenges. Downgraded plans meant slower service, with the end result that not everyone in the household could be online at the same time. Homework might unfold in shifts to take into account multiple students or a parent needing to work at home. Telehealth sessions might stall or drop.

The “how” of maintaining a home connection also meant coping with higher monthly service costs once the ACP expired—especially in the face of limited service choices. Those households had to absorb the costs (sometimes through taking on part-time work such as DoorDash delivery or housecleaning) or cut back elsewhere. Some, faced with no viable options, had to endure higher internet bills to have service that met their needs.

The costs of the ACP’s expiration were not just financial; the program’s end also created new burdens on the day-to-day management of the household. There was the expenditure of time to decide how to ration access, such as which child should do homework first in light of slow service. There were search costs involved in
looking for the appropriate service plan, finding the right side “gig” to pay the bill, or deciding what to cut in the household budget to maintain service.

This adds up to being a tax on former ACP recipients’ time—and that is a particularly burdensome kind of tax for low-income people. Behavioral economists have labeled this a “bandwidth tax” that increases the cognitive load on low-income individuals. The need to manage day-to-day scarcity consumes people’s attention, which can lead to errors in decision-making in other realms of people’s lives. Having to think about how to manage getting by might crowd out thoughtful consideration of allocating time to things that might improve their economic standing, such as job training. The cruel irony is that having reliable internet service has the real potential to lessen the “bandwidth tax”—making the ACP’s end far more than just a financial penalty.

Not everyone was successful in managing the post-ACP environment. Some could not pay monthly internet bills, experienced episodic service disconnection, and endured significant periods of time without home internet service. Other households struggling to pay the internet bill had to deal with late-payment fees on top of a higher monthly fee that resulted from the ACP’s demise. For them, it was a vicious cycle of enduring higher costs to cope with higher internet service bills.

A more subtle—but very real—consequence of having the ACP was the sense of inclusion fostered by high-quality internet service that the ACP helped provide. As one participant put it:

Beneficiaries acquired a sense of assurance that they could carry out daily online activities without a hitch. The ACP gave them a break from contending with second-class internet service in a world that expects first-rate, seamless connectivity.

Unsurprisingly, former ACP beneficiaries hope policymakers will bring the ACP back or, at least, ensure that there are quality low-cost plans that can meet their needs.

As this research shows, low-income households are willing to take on the task of looking for the right service plan for them if it is available to them. They are also willing to pay the out-of-pocket monthly costs for service. But they wish that policymakers would meet them part of the way there with affordable internet plans.

Access to high-quality, affordable internet service would better allow them to fully participate in society—impacting how their children are educated, how they acquire skills for the workforce, and how they interact with health care providers.

John B. Horrigan, PhD, is a Benton Senior Fellow. He is a national expert on technology adoption, digital inclusion, and evaluating the outcomes and impacts of programs designed to promote communications technology adoption and use. Horrigan served at the Federal Communications Commission as a member of the leadership team for the development of the National Broadband Plan. Additionally, as an Associate Director for Research at the Pew Research Center, he focused on libraries and their impact on communities, as well as technology adoption patterns and open government data.

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.

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