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Communications

FCC Prepares $75 Monthly Broadband Subsidies For 'High-Cost' Areas (arstechnica.com) 41

The Federal Communications Commission is paving the way for $75 monthly subsidies to make broadband service more affordable for low-income households in certain "high-cost" areas. From a report: The $75 subsidy will be part of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) that generally offers $30 monthly discounts to people with low incomes. The ACP was created by Congress in late 2021 and implemented by the FCC to replace a previous pandemic-related subsidy program. The ACP already provides $75 monthly subsidies for homes on tribal lands, but not in other areas. The US law that created the ACP lets the FCC make $75 subsidies available in areas where the costs of building broadband networks are higher than average.

That's what the FCC did in its action announced yesterday. "The Infrastructure Act specified that the $75 monthly benefit would support providers that can demonstrate that the standard $30 monthly benefit would cause them to experience 'particularized economic hardship' such that they would be unable to maintain part or all of their broadband network in a high-cost area," the FCC said. ACP subsidies are distributed to Internet service providers that enroll in the program and give customers discounts. Comcast, Charter Spectrum, AT&T, Verizon, and other ISPs last year agreed to make $30 plans with download speeds of at least 100Mbps available to eligible low-income households, essentially making the Internet service free when the $30 subsidy is applied.

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FCC Prepares $75 Monthly Broadband Subsidies For 'High-Cost' Areas

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  • by frdmfghtr ( 603968 ) on Monday August 07, 2023 @12:28PM (#63747566)

    Color me cynical, but I see a lot of service areas being put under this "higher than average" umbrella via some very creative accounting.

    • by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Monday August 07, 2023 @01:12PM (#63747708) Journal

      Color me cynical, but I see a lot of service areas being put under this "higher than average" umbrella via some very creative accounting.

      A couple decades+ ago, the State of Georgia's legislature was considering a $5K annual tuition grant to parents if their kids got accepted to an in-state school. They shitcanned it when they learned that all of Georgia's colleges immediately started taking about raising tuition by.... $5K a year.

      • That's not cynical. That's being a realist.
        • yeah, a minimum subsidy of $X for any thing at all, no matter what it is, immediately raises the regular price of whatever it is by $X
          • This is a known and predictable problem, so why not just include rules against price hikes for those that accept the subsidies?
            I understand it's not really feasible for something fungible like food stamp programs, but tuition should be easy to monitor.
            Unless of course the program was design to funnel public money into private schools.

  • by erp_consultant ( 2614861 ) on Monday August 07, 2023 @12:39PM (#63747600)

    Used correctly, this could be the biggest boost towards poverty alleviation in a very long time. There should be no barrier to the internet, regardless of economic class. I would like to see this coupled with a program to get low cost laptops made available as well.

    Cynically, I realize that a lot of the folks that could benefit from the program will waste their newly found internet access on Netflix and YouTube cat videos. Just like a lot of other people that already have high speed internet. But some people will correctly deduce that this is their ticket out of poverty. They will be able to take advantage of all the free training that is already available to everyone else and use that training and newfound knowledge to better their station in life.

    Sure - you can lead a horse to water but can't make them drink. But let's at least make the water available to everyone. Whether or not they drink it is up to them.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday August 07, 2023 @01:04PM (#63747680)
      does every single moment of a human life have to be either productive work or resting so that you can do more productive work?

      It's 2023, why are we still living like it's the 1800s? Early 1800s...
    • by GlennC ( 96879 )

      Used correctly....

      Somehow I don't see that it will be used correctly...at least, not to the average citizen's understanding of "correctly."

      Owners and stockholders of ISP's however will have a different understanding, and theirs is the one which is more likely to be used.

    • by BigFire ( 13822 )

      It's a government program. Used correctly is against the law.

    • But some people will correctly deduce that this is their ticket out of poverty. They will be able to take advantage of all the free training that is already available to everyone else and use that training and newfound knowledge to better their station in life.

      LOL, this is not going to happen. You may as well subsidize visits to the Casino, or state lottery tickets.

    • Used correctly, this could be the biggest boost towards poverty alleviation in a very long time. There should be no barrier to the internet, regardless of economic class. I would like to see this coupled with a program to get low cost laptops made available as well.

      It's interesting how much support there appears to be for an internet/technology subsidy on slashdot. This support is not surprising since there are many on slashdot who consider internet access to be a key basic need. However, what's much more interesting is how that support drops off when talking about other basic needs that are arguably much more important. Things, like food, shelter, heat, medical care are much more important than internet access. Yet, many people protest loudly against subsidies fo

      • I live in an area where Comcast provides this high speed internet, but not for that price. They have gig internet for $150/month. Perhaps they have a $30 plan for 'new subscribers' but not for me. I can't even switch to another provider and come back as a 'new subscriber' because I need faster speeds than anyone else offers in the area, so I'm stuck paying their full time not-easy-to-afford price.
    • by tomz16 ( 992375 )

      "used correctly" is the big caveat.

      You don't **NEED** 10mbit, much less the proposed 100mbit minimum to access the library, wikipedia, e-mail, access government services, apply for jobs, etc. etc.

      IMHO, I'm all for subsidizing basic connectivity everyone, but if you are asking everyone else in society to chip in, then BASIC is the keyword. $75 in HCOL areas is just a blatant handout to ISP's. DC metro + NYC metro both have $50 (e.g. Fios 300/300 & Comcast 200, etc.) retail options that are already BEYO

  • High Cost? (Score:4, Funny)

    by usedtobestine ( 7476084 ) on Monday August 07, 2023 @12:46PM (#63747624)

    Surely only SpaceX should qualify for that program.

  • by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Monday August 07, 2023 @01:16PM (#63747728)

    Availability is the problem
    In our semi-rural area, the only option is ATT DSL. It sucks on a good day and ATT will not do any new installations, and I expect that any day they will shut down the service. Our local ISP has tried for years to install fiber, but have been hit with endless roadblocks
    Evidently the telco monopolies have the attitude... We refuse to serve your area and will use every dirty trick in the book to prevent anybody else from serving it

    • by Anonymous Coward

      I'm willing to bet it's not your only option. SpaceX, HughesNet, INMARSAT, Iridium, ViaSat (now L3H), possibly even O3b.

      Do you get cell signal? Most of the carriers offer tethering or home internet.

      Many rural areas I have worked in also had access to one of the many flavors of microwave based access points (WiMax, Wifi Link, Radio Shot, IVM, etc.) many work 50+ miles (line of sight).

      Are you sure ATT is your only option, or just the only option out of the 2 you looked at?

  • This is just a band-aid that will end up hurting everyone in the long run. Most Internet, phone, electric, and gas companies usually have state-sanctioned monopolies in the communities they serve. There is no incentive to compete on pricing when you are the only option. They'll add a bunch of new subscribers, be super profitable for a couple quarters, then complain to the state commissions that they need to increase rates because they added new equipment expecting the subscribers to keep pace and have a dut
    • This is just a band-aid that will end up hurting everyone in the long run. Most Internet, phone, electric, and gas companies usually have state-sanctioned monopolies in the communities they serve. There is no incentive to compete on pricing when you are the only option. They'll add a bunch of new subscribers, be super profitable for a couple quarters, then complain to the state commissions that they need to increase rates because they added new equipment expecting the subscribers to keep pace and have a duty to provide profit to their shareholders.

      You're half-right, but what you described is the worst case scenario, IMHO. Subsidies, done right, are dynamic, like the EV subsidy. They can change at any time...so today, many poor get reduced price internet. If it's abused, it can be revoked or tuned based on need. This is a windfall, not guaranteed income for telcos.

  • by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Monday August 07, 2023 @02:14PM (#63747956)
    This is huge for impoverished children. Most of the commenters are viewing this from their perspective as adults...presumably middle-class. In my view, this is not about viewing cat videos, but ensuring poor kids can do their homework. In my town, there are many poor families where paying Comcast's exorbitant fees is quite painful. The adults may not need good internet, but their kids do. During the pandemic, many families really suffered because their children couldn't do zoom school or get good access for their homework. Many were going to public libraries to do their homework because their parents couldn't really afford internet and people realized this once they saw a bunch of kids gathering in the library parking lot during the pandemic.

    I know among conservatives, they seem to take joy in shitting on the poor and claiming it's a failure of character on the part of the impoverished, but every poor person in my community that I know is working full time. If it's a 2 parent household, both parents work full time.

    Our shitty regulations allow minimum wage to not be a living wage, so 2 parents, working full time, with 1 kid can't afford to live a basic life without assistance unless at least 1 parent has a good job.

    Subsidizing internet just ensures they can buy more groceries or pay their bills and be less in debt. From a purely economic perspective, it's a much better investment than any tax cut to the wealthy ever was. At least every dollar goes right back into the economy...both to the telco as well as ensuring the impoverished are spending that money elsewhere in the local economy. Give billionaires like Musk or Zuckerberg that money and a lot less will go into the local economy.
    • At least every dollar goes right back into the economy.

      aka inflation, the reason why working full time isn't enough to buy anything. Will that sweet moment when internet is cheaper be worth it before the price doubles and people can't use it anyway because they've been evicted due to rent increases? I guess it's relative to life expectancy, like if those children starve before they reach adulthood maybe the internet enriched their lives.

      • At least every dollar goes right back into the economy.

        aka inflation, the reason why working full time isn't enough to buy anything. Will that sweet moment when internet is cheaper be worth it before the price doubles and people can't use it anyway because they've been evicted due to rent increases? I guess it's relative to life expectancy, like if those children starve before they reach adulthood maybe the internet enriched their lives.

        You really don't understand the real estate market well. We have a housing shortage for a variety of reasons, mainly due to wealthy people buying up property for speculation purposes. Ask your rich friends. Mine won't shut up about how property is the smartest investment...."oooh, you're buying stocks...the REEEAL money is in property, ha ha ha."

        Inflation is a giant multi-variable equation, but the main variable that impacted my region is wealthy speculators. Rich pieces of shit buy up properties an

    • Nobody takes joy in shitting on the poor. Most conservatives I know( Including myself) view many of the programs for the poor to be counterproductive. We're in favor or more effective solutions.
      So in our example, we may be in favor or helping poorer people access the internet. But we can also see how this sort of law might simply cause telcos and ISPs to simply use this money as a slush fund for increased profits, with no real positive outcome.
      • So in our example, we may be in favor or helping poorer people access the internet. But we can also see how this sort of law might simply cause telcos and ISPs to simply use this money as a slush fund for increased profits, with no real positive outcome.

        All money going into a telco is used towards profits. All for-profit businesses attempt to make profits and typically increasing volume of customers increases profits. I'm not sure what point you're making. Most businesses don't put their gross revenue in slush funds. They invest in the business, do stock buybacks, or pay dividends. All they're doing is giving money to the poor and forcing them to spend it on internet. Nothing changes for the telcos other than they get new customers that couldn't pay

  • 75 USD is more than the full monthly price for FTTH in most developed countries
  • Governments have no right to steal funds in order to redistribute wealth. It's just one more example of a corrupt system of government.

    • Socialism ALWAYS increases poverty.

      Please tell the parents of the USA, they'll be better when they don't have to pay taxes that; put a road beside their home, provide their children an education, give their children vaccines and medicines. I'm sure they be glad to hear how they can save money by not having these things.

      Governments have no right ...

      That's why the government is paying a telco cartel, that does whatever it wants with the money.

      ... to steal funds ...

      The US government is already giving $65 billion to telcos to provide internet services to disadvantaged (out-of-town) communities.

  • Instead of using taxpayer money to pay off the service providers, open up the market. Stop letting cable be a monopoly and let the market fight it out.

    Or just slap a cap on what these monopolies are allowed to charge.

  • by WindBourne ( 631190 ) on Monday August 07, 2023 @08:28PM (#63749032) Journal
    the money is used to bring in LOCALLY OWNED FIBER. IOW, it should not be used for paying off a bunch of broad-band companies that will simply keep jacking up their rates as their CEO's get more and more $.

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