Low-income

The Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) Program will expire at the end of 2021. Next year, the program will be rebranded as the Affordable Connectivity Program and made available to more households — any household with an income at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines will be eligible. But this will come at a cost, as the monthly discounts will be $30 instead of $50. Broadband experts and legislators have heralded the program as a monumental step in making high-speed internet more affordable, but recipients of the EBB Program in Texas are more split on the change.

The City of Amarillo (TX) plans to use American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding to build a fixed wireless network targeting low-income households. “We will lead with that technology; it doesn’t mean we won’t have to change moving down the road [or] where we can’t do line-of-sight,” said Rich Gagnon, the city's managing director and chief information officer. A particular concern in Amarillo was the large number of refugees – 12,000 – who have settled in the city, many of whom do not have broadband available to them.

Science fiction author William Gibson famously said that the future is already here, it’s just not very evenly distributed. Smartphones and on-the-go internet access have made many of our working lives more efficient and flexible. But the requirement for constant connectivity isn’t only a fact of white-collar work—it has spread to workers up and down the income ladder. And while the requirement has spread, the resources that workers need to maintain it are not evenly distributed. More than a quarter of low-income Americans depend solely on their phones for internet access.

Imagine a government program that would connect millions of financially-challenged households to broadband in their homes. In a world of “If it sounds too good to be true…” you can expect that skepticism reigns. Fortunately, the Affordable Connectivity Program is not only a real program, but Congress allocated about $14 billion to help lower-income households pay for internet service. The catch?

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocates $65 billion to support various broadband initiatives. Keller & Heckman previously examined the $42.45 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (“BEAD”) Program and the $1 Billion Middle Mile Grant Program, each of which focuses on deploying broadband networks to unserved and underserved areas.

The federal government launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit in February 2021 to provide low-income households with a $50 monthly discount on their internet bill as part of a multi-pronged approach to reduce the digital divide, which is a function of both access to a wired high-speed internet service provider and the affordability of service. According to the Universal Service Administrative Company, enrollment in the Emergency Broadband Benefit reached 7.1 million households in November 2021 (up from 6.1 million in October).

After the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the deep broadband divide across the country, lawmakers said the recently passed infrastructure bill will connect many communities that struggled as much of daily life moved online. The newly passed infrastructure bill allocates $65 billion for broadband access, aimed at rural areas, lower-income populations and Tribal communities.

In making his case that safety net programs should be easier to use, Jimmy Chen, a tech entrepreneur, recalled visiting a welfare office where people on food stamps endured long waits to submit routine paperwork. They passed the time as people in lines do, staring at their phones — which had the potential to do the work online with greater convenience, accuracy and speed.

The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau waives certain provisions of rules governing the internet service offering, standard rate, provider participation, and election notice requirements for the end of the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) Program as a result of the text in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The Bureau also provides additional guidance to help consumers, participating service providers, program partners, and other stakeholders prepare for the transition from the EBB Program to the Affordable Connectivity Program.

Understanding affordability of internet service and its role in adoption are crucial for developing solutions to close the digital divide.The goals of this study were first to understand the barriers to connectivity and efficacy of low-cost internet service options; and second, to use the findings to inform digital inclusion policies, advocacy efforts, and other initiatives that aim to drive digital equity. The findings were informed by a national survey on broadband adoption among low- and lower-middle income households.