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The Affordable Connectivity Program, which helped over 23 million households save on internet costs, ends today without additional funding from Congress
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The program expires despite many calls on Congress to extend funding
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If there's a bright side, it's that a number of ISPs have already come forth with ACP alternatives
Well, the day has come. Today is the last day that anyone will receive benefit from the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) on their internet bills.
The program’s funding has been hurtling toward zero despite various legislative efforts to secure additional money from Congress. In January, the ACP had just under $4 billion left, according to this tracker from the Universal Service Administrative Company. The tracker hasn’t been updated since April 30, but by that point the program only had about $1.1 billion left.
May was the last month of the ACP subsidy, which had already dropped to $14 instead of $30 at the end of April.
But the ACP hasn’t gone down without a fight.
Earlier this month a group of senators tried to save the ACP by introducing a bipartisan amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorization. After the FAA amendment was rejected, Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-NM) introduced it as a standalone bill in the Senate, although “the odds are still against its passage by the Senate and adoption in the House,” New Street Research analyst Blair Levin said in a note this week.
Other efforts to save the program have also been futile.
In October 2023 the Biden-Harris Administration sent Congress a request for $6 billion to extend funding for the ACP. That didn’t go anywhere far.
Then there was the ACP Extension Act introduced by Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) in January. That bill would fund the program with $7 billion and has 230 co-sponsors signed on, but it hasn’t seen much movement, either.
And most recently, on May 20, House Rep. Brandon Williams (R-NY) announced the Affordable Connectivity Program Improvement and Extension Act of 2024, which would fund the ACP with $6 billion. So far, the full text of the legislation hasn’t been released, and the bill has only picked up one cosponsor.
Alas, the program has now lapsed for its 23 million enrolled households, and Levin said “the political incentive to pass something will likely lessen in the short term.”
“In the next few months, the ISPs and ACP recipients will adjust to a post ACP world, so that any new funding and new requirements would add to what is already an administrative and customer service morass,” he added.
Without Congressional action to extend funding for the program, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has said that millions of households will be at risk of losing their internet connections.
A number of ISPs have already come forth with ACP alternatives, such as paying out-of-pocket for customers’ ACP benefits themselves or enrolling customers into their own discounted internet.