EBB, ACP Spending Said Unlikely to Bring Service to Many Unconnected

Emergency broadband benefit and affordable connectivity program spending often goes more toward upgrading existing wireline ISP subscribers’ services than toward bringing connectivity to the unconnected, ISPs and digital equity interests told us. The FCC didn't comment.

That’s still a public policy success, said Claire Park, policy analyst with New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI). She said not much data is available about the quality of low-income broadband services, but they appear anecdotally to be subpar, so subscribers choosing to upgrade to better service is understandable.

About 7% of Mediacom’s EBB customers were new connects, though under ACP that is growing to 9%-10%, said Tom Larsen, senior vice president-government and public relations. He said when EBB rolled out, many providers were hesitant to market it heavily due to concerns the federal funding would dry up, leaving them with angry consumers. The announcement of ACP made it evident such funding is permanent, and Mediacom ramped up marketing with more direct mail and advertising encouraging new connects, he said.

EBB didn’t bring WideOpenWest a lot of new customers, as participants instead largely were existing subscribers upgrading their service, Chief Financial Officer John Rego told analysts earlier this month (see 2203070048).

About 70% of Starry’s EBB and ACP subscribers have been new subscribers, said Virginia Lam Abrams, senior vice president-government affairs. “The benefit is reaching families who may not have had service previously,” Abrams said. It’s “really critical that you meet residents where they're at,” she said: “We take that commitment pretty seriously." An AT&T spokesperson told us the ISP didn’t break down its EBB and ACP customers by existing subscribers and previously unconnected households. Verizon, Comcast, Charter, Altice and Lumen didn’t comment.

The benefits tilting toward upgraded service plans rather than new connects reflects a lack of proper outreach about EBB and now ACP, said Angela Siefer, National Digital Inclusion Alliance executive director. With the federal government given no money for outreach for sign-ups, it's unsurprising current customers hear about it more, she said. Such "digital inclusion" was an overlooked issue when EBB and ACP were being put together, and is a topic that started to get significant attention only in the past couple of years, she said. "There's a lot of learning everybody's doing right now," she said.

Siefer said broadband provider engagement needs to improve and there should be funding for community-based trusted institutions to do outreach. She said such funding could come from the Digital Equity Act.

Areas with fewer new households subscribing to the internet through ACP may be because there’s “low connectivity in the area in general,” said Internet Innovation Alliance co-Chair Kim Keenan. These households may live in a “broadband desert” or don’t have the “digital readiness” to get connected, Keenan said, noting the FCC’s outreach grant funding will help organizations reach communities that may not be connected due to socioeconomic reasons.

The challenge with enrolling households in EBB was the lack of funding to do outreach, said Multicultural Media Telecom and Internet Council Vice President-Policy Fallon Wilson. The “if you build it, they will come” mindset “doesn’t work for communities who are often navigating multiple challenges,” she said. MMTC has been working with Black churches nationally to educate communities about ACP, Wilson said, so “once those dollars do come down … they can actively begin using those resources to enroll the communities that we know don’t have access.”

Working with participating providers is essential to “push the needle on ending the digital divide as we know it,” Wilson said. ISPs should be “conversation partners” in getting the word out about the program and enrolling eligible households, she said. Wilson said having more disaggregated data on who's enrolling in the program by race, gender, age or ethnicity could also ensure the FCC’s forthcoming outreach grant funding can be prioritized toward reaching communities that aren’t enrolling. “It’s hard when you can’t see those things,” she said.

Service cost is a big but not the sole barrier to the unconnected getting connectivity, said OTI’s Park. She said COVID-19 pandemic conditions have limited the ability of community-based organizations that might be active in signing up the unconnected. As conditions improve, direct outreach efforts might as well, she said. Park said there also should be coordination with federal agencies that distribute welfare benefits as a means of outreach.

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, in a call with media this week after commissioners' March monthly meeting, said the agency is "making every effort" to reach out both to people who have taken part in past agency programs and those who haven't. She said it was "a measure of our success" that in a year more than 10 million have registered for the programs "and [are] getting online and staying online thanks to this program." The commission is "going to continue to work on it, continue to do outreach," particularly in partnership with community organizations, she said: "We are not going to stop."