ACP enrollments end today – now what?

The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which subsidizes broadband for low-income households, will officially stop accepting new enrollments after today, February 7, as the FCC gears up for the popular program to run out of funds this May.

This week, the ACP is officially benefitting 23.18 million households, including 22.85 million non-tribal households, receiving a $30/month subsidy toward broadband service, and 327,034 tribal households, receiving $75/month per household. The program has been adding roughly 200,000 new enrollees per week over the last month, according to data from the Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC), which administers the ACP.

But no new enrollees will be added after today: "Consumers must be approved and enrolled with a service provider by 11:59 p.m. ET on February 7th to receive the benefit," reads a bulletin on USAC's website.

For the remaining 23.8 million already receiving the benefit, service providers began sending communications to ACP enrollees on January 25, as required by the FCC, alerting consumers that the program is expected to end in May.

According to an analysis of over half a dozen notices by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, comms from several "major ISPs" were "concise and appear to meet the FCC's minimal requirements" for the first notice, but "many notifications lack resources and information that would be helpful for those enrollees who are confused, facing unaffordable bills, or at risk of falling into debt."

Related:The Divide: Why the Affordable Connectivity Program is key to closing the digital divide

Furthermore, according to Benton, "only half of the notifications suggest that customers can contact their Congressional representatives" about passing the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which would keep the program funded with $7 billion for the rest of the year. That bipartisan bill was introduced in January and now has 24 co-sponsors, including 12 Democrats and 12 Republicans.

But it still faces an uncertain path in an especially difficult political environment.

In an email to Light Reading, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY), who introduced the legislation, called it "the most realistic solution" to protect the ACP.

"Today's enrollment deadline cannot be the last opportunity for Americans to gain access to low-cost, reliable, and high-speed broadband. With significant bipartisan and bicameral support of now twenty-four cosponsors, including twelve Democrats and twelve Republicans, alongside the endorsement of more than 400 organizations in the industry, my legislation, the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, stands as the most realistic solution to protect this critical program for the families who rely on it," said Clarke. "If we hope to bridge the digital divide, Congress must ensure our constituents maintain affordable broadband access. The ACP represents an invaluable tool in that mission. It's our responsibility to prevent its expiration."

Related:New ACP extension bill would fund program with $7B

Calls for continued funding have come from other sources. Last week, in a letter to Congress, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel warned that without additional funding, ACP households "are at risk of losing the internet service they rely on for work, school, health care and more."

Rosenworcel cited survey results showing that "nearly three-quarters of households use their ACP-funded internet for health care, approximately half use it for employment, and approximately three-quarters of ACP subscribers between 18 and 24 years of age use it for school." The results further indicate that, if ACP ends, "more than three-quarters of the households that count on this program would experience service disruption or would have to change their existing plan or stop service altogether."

In a fact sheet on Tuesday, the White House called the ACP "the largest internet affordability program in our nation's history," impacting one in six households, adding: "The Biden-Harris Administration continues to call on Congress to pass legislation that would extend free and discounted high-speed internet for eligible households through 2024."

Related:Nearly half of ACP households are using it for fixed broadband – FCC

Others leading the push for continued funding are consumer advocacy groups and nonprofits. Last month, a coalition called the Affordable Broadband Campaign led Don't Disconnect Us Day, which has thus far resulted in over 418,000 calls, emails, and social media posts to Congress in support of funding for the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), according to a spokesperson.

The National Lifeline Association (NaLA), a nonprofit dedicated to the preservation of the FCC's Lifeline program, is also hosting a digital campaign to Save ACP as part of the Don't Disconnect Us Day initiative. (Lifeline provides a $9.25/month telecommunications benefit for low-income consumers compared to the ACP's $30 for broadband.) NaLA told Light Reading that its Save ACP effort has contributed "117,453 emails, 7,437 calls/voicemails, and over 2,872 social media posts" to the 418,000 tally.

Consequences felt

Meanwhile, as the ACP enters its wind-down phase, consequences are being felt around the country before consumers lose their existing benefits.

NaLA is among the organizations working to both try to save the program through advocacy efforts and to assist confused consumers who are receiving notices about the benefit ending.

"One of the interesting and sort of unintended consequences of all this has been the fact that we have had to increase the amount of resources we're putting to assist confused consumers," said Jordan Axt, who is leading NaLA's consumer outreach around the ACP ending. "They don't know who to call, where to turn. They think that maybe we're the ones that have a say in whether or not the program provides them funding ... And we've been getting hundreds of those calls and emails per week."

NaLA expects that to only get worse as the enrollment freeze begins.

"We have the enrollment freeze kicking in on Thursday [February 8]. And working with service providers on communications around that enrollment freeze is really challenging," said John Heitmann, counsel for NaLA. "Trying to operationalize what you can offer to whom and why, and put that in words that can be understood easily by consumers on your website or by any of the folks who are doing the good work of the outreach in the field ... a lot of work's going into it, and I give all the providers a lot of credit for trying to get it right. But it's going to be confusing on Thursday for folks."

Digital equity organizations on the ground in local communities are bearing the brunt of that confusion.

"The struggle for many of us on the ground doing it is how to get this information out to residents who are already disenfranchised and don't always have an easy way to access information about the sunset of the program," said Candace Browdy, executive director at Connect Lake County (CLC), in Illinois, one of many digital equity groups that has been on the frontlines of teaching people about the benefit program, helping them enroll and keeping them connected. 

CLC is also one of several organizations that had previously won grant funding from the FCC to help spur ACP adoption, but access to those funds is now being frozen as the ACP winds down, forcing some groups to have to lay off the digital navigators they brought on board.

"We are now with limited resources hitting the pavement, trying to go door-to-door and make phone calls and go to all of our community anchor institutions to get the information into the hands of people, residents, consumers so that they can make informed decisions," said Browdy. 

According to Browdy, CLC is in "good shape" compared to other digital inclusion groups because the org had a digital navigator program in place at the time it won FCC grant funding. That meant the group was able to use the funds for outreach efforts immediately, while other groups are just starting to use the now-frozen grants to add staff. Still, however, Connect Lake County expects to lose roughly $85,000 of its awarded $282,000 in grants due to the funding freeze.

"We are not able to tap into that to support residents or consumers through this wind down," she said.

Additional consumer confusion is coming from a series of scammer websites that have been running search engine ads ahead of today's ACP enrollment end date, promoting the sale of "unnecessary 'how-to' guides for ACP enrollment" as well as "door-to-door sales pitches promising non-existent instant discounts," according to new research from BroadbandNow.

Furthermore, said Browdy, Connect Lake County has been frustrated by a lack of information from the region's incumbent provider, Comcast, about the options available to subscribers. In its online communications about the ACP ending, Comcast says it will have "multiple options for lower-income consumers to get high-speed Internet, including our long-standing Internet Essentials program, with prices starting at $9.95 per month" – and speeds up to 50 Mbit/s – and that it has "plans to introduce additional low-cost Internet and mobile products that will provide even more options for customers."

But for Browdy and others seeking to help consumers with their choices, those options aren't clear enough.

"It is inexcusable that ISPs are playing this 'we're working on it' game," said Browdy, noting that it's been public knowledge for many months that the ACP would run out of funds early this year, leaving ample time for ISPs to come up with a solution. 

"We should be able to go out to our consumers immediately and say, 'this is what you currently have. You can stay with your ISP. This is what you'll be able to do going forward or you can switch.' We can't give any of that information to consumers. In no other industry would that be okay," she added.

And while recent research suggests that the cost of the ACP ending will be negligible for some larger service providers like Comcast, that's less likely the case for small ISPs offering crucial competition in low-income and rural areas typically ignored by incumbents. 

That includes tribal ISPs in particular, noted Claudia Tarbell, senior engagement manager for tribal and indigenous communities at Calix, in a recent conversation with Light Reading. "One tribe that we work with, Siyeh Communications, they shared with us that 60% of their population is below the poverty line. So cutting the ACP program is not only detrimental to the community members, but it's also detrimental to the broadband service provider," she said.

"We've had tribal leaders reaching out to us because they're gonna get hit even harder because that subsidy is much larger. And in some cases, in many cases, there is only one choice in those rural communities and tribal lands," said Jordan Axt with NaLA. "And that's tied to BEAD [Broadband Equity Access and Deployment] money too ... The service providers are scared that if they build it, the customers won't be able to afford it."

The BEAD factor

Indeed, the ACP ending holds consequences for the $42.5 billion BEAD program, which requires grant recipients to offer a low-cost service option, as per rules set by Congress and enforced by the NTIA.

"The BEAD money without the ACP program is going to be a challenging proposition," said NaLA's John Heitmann. "I do think that the smaller providers, in particular, will have a harder time standing up independent low-income programs that sort of can address this because, you know, the things that preceded it [the ACP], frankly, weren't getting the job done in terms of providing connectivity that was robust enough at a price point that was accessible."

In an email to Light Reading, an NTIA spokesperson called affordability a "core component" of the Biden administration's Internet for All agenda and said the agency will provide guidance to states on the low-cost requirement as needed.

"The BEAD program ensures that newly connected households have access to affordable plans, but it does not replace the Affordable Connectivity Program," said the NTIA spokesperson. "Without additional funding from Congress, 1 in 6 households will lose this benefit, making it harder for Americans to access education, jobs, healthcare and more."  

"As part of our standard technical assistance, we will provide states with any guidance needed regarding the BEAD program's low-cost service option requirement," said the NTIA spokesperson.

According to a NaLA survey of more than 60,000 ACP and Lifeline consumers, at least 60% of ACP/Lifeline subscribers live below the poverty line, and more than half "do not have a debit or credit card or a bank account."

[Ed. note: This story was updated on February 7 at 1 p.m. ET to include a statement from Congresswoman Clarke.]