Cách 23 triệu người Mỹ đang thích nghi với cuộc sống không có Chương trình Kết nối Giá rẻ
Phyllis Jackson thích sử dụng internet. Cô ấy dùng internet để tìm kiếm công thức nấu ăn, tập luyện cho nhóm nhảy dây của mình và xem video trên YouTube để không cảm thấy cô đơn. Jackson, một cựu trợ lý hành chính ở Monroeville, Pennsylvania, nói cô ấy không thể tưởng tượng cuộc sống mà không có kết nối internet. “Tôi coi internet như là người bạn đồng hành của mình nhiều lần,” cô ấy nói với CNET. “Nó khiến tôi cảm thấy mình không cô đơn.”
Jackson đã có kết nối internet tại nhà thông qua Chương trình Kết nối Giá rẻ, một quỹ bảo trợ thời dịch bệnh cung cấp 30 đến 75 đô la mỗi tháng để giúp các hộ gia đình thu nhập thấp trả tiền cho internet. Vào tháng 5, chương trình trị giá 14,2 tỷ đô la chính thức đã cạn kiệt tiền, khiến cho Jackson và 23 triệu hộ gia đình khác như cô ấy phải trả hóa đơn internet cao hơn từ 30 đến 75 đô la so với tháng trước.
Đó là nếu họ quyết định tiếp tục sử dụng dịch vụ internet của mình: 13% số người sử dụng ACP, tương đương khoảng 3 triệu hộ gia đình, nói rằng sau khi chương trình kết thúc, họ dự định hủy dịch vụ, theo cuộc khảo sát của Viện Benton được thực hiện khi ACP hết hạn.
Suốt thời gian internet tồn tại, luôn có một khoảng cách giữa những người có quyền truy cập đến internet – và có khả năng chi trả – và những người không có. Đa số chi tiêu internet liên bang trong hai thập kỷ qua đã đi vào mở rộng việc truy cập internet đến vùng nông thôn. Ví dụ: vào năm 2021, Quốc hội đã dành 90 tỷ đô la để bắt kịp sự chia rời số liệu, nhưng chỉ có 14,2 tỷ đô la đi vào việc làm internet trở nên phổ biến thông qua ACP; phần còn lại được dành cho cơ sở hạ tầng mạng rộng.
“Rào cản lớn nhất đối với internet tại nhà là chi phí. Có nhiều người không có quyền tiếp cận internet tại nhà vì chi phí hơn là vì cơ sở hạ tầng không tồn tại.” Angela Siefer, giám đốc điều hành của Hiệp hội Bao gồm Tất cả Digit học quốc gia “Chúng ta đang dành 42 tỷ đô la để đảm bảo cơ sở hạ tầng tồn tại, nhưng chúng ta không dành một cái gì đó để vượt qua rào cản về giá cả,” Angela Siefer, giám đốc điều hành của Hiệp hội Bao gồm Tất cả Digit học quốc gia, nói với CNET. “Điều đó rất chênh lệch và cần được giải quyết.”
Hầu hết những người sử dụng ACP sẽ không hủy dịch vụ internet của họ – họ chỉ cảm thấy ngân sách của mình bị căng thẳng thêm một chút. Bốn người sử dụng ACP mà tôi nói chuyện nói rằng kết nối internet của họ quá quan trọng để bỏ hẳn, nhưng không dễ dàng tìm ra số tiền 30 đô la đó ở nơi khác trong ngân sách của họ. Chính phủ liên bang đã chi ra 90 tỷ đô la cho các dự án internet sau đại dịch, nhưng chỉ 14 tỷ đô la được dành cho việc giá cả hợp lý. Aitor Diago/Getty Images
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Phyllis Jackson loves being online. She uses the internet to look up recipes, practice for her line dance group and play YouTube videos so the house doesn’t feel lonely. Jackson, a retired administrative assistant in Monroeville, Pennsylvania, said she couldn’t imagine life without an internet connection.
“I consider the internet like my best friend a lot of times,” she told CNET. “It makes me feel that I’m not alone.”
Jackson got her first home internet connection through the Affordable Connectivity Program, a pandemic-era fund that provided $30 to $75 a month to help low-income households pay for internet. In May, the $14.2 billion program officially ran out of money, leaving Jackson and 23 million households like hers with internet bills that were $30 to $75 higher than the month before.
That’s if they decided to hang on to their internet service at all: 13% of ACP subscribers, or roughly 3 million households, said that after the program ended they planned to cancel service, according to a Benton Institute survey conducted as the ACP expired.
For as long as the internet has existed, there’s been a gap between those who have access to it — and the means to afford it — and those who don’t. The vast majority of federal broadband spending over the past two decades has gone toward expanding internet access to rural areas. Case in point: In 2021, Congress dedicated $90 billion to closing the digital divide, but only $14.2 billion went to making the internet more affordable through the ACP; the rest went to broadband infrastructure.
“We’re dedicating $42 billion towards making sure that the infrastructure exists, but we’re not devoting anything towards the affordability barrier,” Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, told CNET. “That’s very lopsided and needs to be addressed.”
Most people who used the ACP won’t cut their internet subscriptions — they’ll just feel their already-strained budgets stretched a little thinner. The four ACP users I spoke with said their internet connection is too vital to get rid of entirely, but it wasn’t easy to find that $30 elsewhere in their budgets.
The federal government spent $90 billion on broadband projects in the wake of the pandemic, but only $14 billion went to addressing affordability.
Cheaper groceries, lower electricity: How ACP users are adjusting
“I’ve just had to do some juggling,” Serena Salisbury told CNET. “I’ve had to go to cheaper household items, cheaper detergents. And my electric bill — I had to back off on that and find a different way of paying my electric bill just so I could keep my internet.”
Salisbury is one of the 5 million recipients who didn’t have an internet connection before the ACP. She initially signed up during the pandemic to help ensure that the kids she was babysitting could keep up with school. Back then, the program was called the Emergency Broadband Benefit and it provided $50 monthly instead of the ACP’s $30.
Kathleen Wain found out about the ACP through WorkMoney, a nonprofit that helps people save money on everyday expenses. Wain lives in the small town of Bryson City, just outside of Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina, and raises two grandchildren in her subsidized-rent apartment.
She falls into two of the groups that used the ACP at the highest rates: older Americans and military families. Nearly half of all ACP subscribers were military families.
Wain said the ACP gave her and her grandkids some breathing room, allowing them to take trips and buy things like clothes and school supplies. This is where she’ll have to find room in her budget again now that the ACP is gone.
“We’ll have to cut back,” Wain said. “We just won’t travel as much, because gas has gotten very high. We’ll cut down some of the groceries.”
“The main ways I try to save money are between my food and my electricity,” Jackson, the retired administrative assistant from Monroeville, told CNET. “In the wintertime, it would be the heat; in the summertime, it would be the air. So I’ve tried to watch that — keep that low and cut back.”
Four million seniors and 10 million Americans over the age of 50 were enrolled in the ACP.
The ACP provided stability
One thing I heard over and over from the experts and ACP users I spoke with was how the ACP established a sense of consistency with their internet service.
“I was thinking that it’s something I’m going to have for years,” Jackson said. “When you’re on a fixed budget and you’re constantly trying to save dollars here and there, that $30 is necessary.”
In Benton’s survey, 56% of low-income households said a monthly bill up to $75 was too expensive; the average monthly internet bill they reported was $66.53. In other words, there’s very little wiggle room for these households before internet costs become unaffordable.
“The ACP helped close the digital divide, but it also addressed this issue of subscription vulnerability,” John Horrigan, senior fellow at the Benton Institute, told CNET. “I think it’s sometimes underappreciated how the ACP has helped with maintaining connectivity among low-income households, lessening this falling off the network from time to time due to economic issues.”
By the time the Federal Communications Commission halted ACP enrollments, in February, over 23 million households had enrolled — more than half of all eligible households. The ACP accepted households at or below 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, or $60,000 for a family of four.
The extent to which the ACP helped connect people who didn’t already have internet before is a point of debate. In December 2023, four Republican lawmakers argued in a letter to the FCC that “the vast majority of tax dollars have gone to households that already had broadband prior to the subsidy.” An FCC survey showed that 22% of people who signed up for the ACP had no internet at all before enrolling.
What we know for sure is that the number of Americans with broadband internet increased from 73% in 2019 to 80% in 2023. It’s anyone’s guess how these numbers will change once the ACP disappears. One advocacy group I spoke with said it may be months before we can properly assess the impact of the end of ACP.
In the wake of the ACP, many local organizations have gone back to strategies like distributing Wi-Fi hotspots to keep people connected.
Local organizations are reverting to pandemic-era strategies
The ACP was a first-of-its-kind infusion of cash from the federal government, but local advocacy groups have been on the front lines of the digital divide for years. I spoke with people from these groups and several expressed frustration at the ACP’s abrupt end.
“It almost felt like pulling the rug out from underneath people,” said Gabe Middleton, CEO of Human-I-T, a nonprofit that supplies devices, internet access and digital-skills training to people on the wrong side of the digital divide.
Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, told me she’s seen many local organizations, such as nonprofits, libraries and housing authorities, revert back to strategies they used during the pandemic to keep people online. Those include distributing Wi-Fi hotspots, which are typically a short-term loan and come with spotty service and stingy data caps.
“It’s commendable, but it’s also a Band-Aid. I’m not saying we don’t appreciate Band-Aids, but it’s another example of why we need real solutions,” Siefer said. “If we start hearing again that folks are figuring out how to put Wi-Fi in parking lots, I might scream.”
Many internet service providers continued providing the $30 discount into July even though they weren’t being reimbursed through the ACP. This was a bet that Congress wouldn’t let funding lapse for more than a month. So far, they’ve lost that bet.
The economic impact from the ACP is estimated to be twice that of the $42 billion BEAD program, which expands broadband access to rural areas.
Billions in lost savings
Proponents of the Affordable Connectivity Program argue that the subsidy essentially pays for itself. A recent economics working paper estimated that for every dollar spent on the ACP, the nation’s gross domestic product increases by $3.89. The Broadband Equity Access and Deployment, or BEAD, program, which funds broadband infrastructure, had about half that impact.
Another study, from the Chamber of Progress, calculated that ACP subscribers will lose $10 billion in work opportunities, $1.4 billion in telehealth savings and $627 million in student benefits if the program doesn’t return. The Benton Institute study found that the lost economic benefits from online shopping alone amounted to $1.5 billion.
“You’re better able to shop for good deals. You’re better able to understand what products are going to be suitable for you or not,” said Horrigan. He calculated the savings from online shopping to be about $1,300 per year for low-income households.
The impact on the nation’s health care could be even more significant. A recent analysis by Cigna found that telemedicine access lowered the cost of care by up to $141 per visit, and 72% of ACP subscribers said they used the internet to schedule or attend health care appointments.
The end of the ACP could also jeopardize the $42 billion BEAD program as well. One analysis found that the existence of the ACP led to an estimated 25% reduction in the per-household subsidy needed to incentivize providers in rural areas.
“We’ve heard from providers that affordability support drives investments in deployment,” said Fazlullah. “It allows them to be more ambitious, because they understand that after their initial capital expenditures, there’s going to be a subscriber base that’s consistent.”
Other low-income internet resources
Since the ACP discount stopped going out to customers, many internet providers have stepped in with their own low-income plans. These typically have income requirements similar to the ACP’s.
To help consumers navigate these discounted plans, the National Digital Inclusion Alliance created a scoring system called Grading Internet for Good, based on factors like cost, transparency and plan performance. I’ve included the NDIA ratings below, along with some basic information about each plan.
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Could the ACP come back?
A flurry of ACP extension bills were introduced in 2024, but though the program is widely popular among voters, efforts to secure funding for an extension have fallen flat.
When I polled industry insiders about the prospects of an ACP extension, responses ranged from tepidly hopeful to flat-out bleak.
“I’m torn. I’m still hopeful,” said Siefer, the director for the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. “One reason I’m hopeful right now is that J.D. Vance is actually a really good supporter, basically, and he might have more influence than he did before.” Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio who’s now Donald Trump’s running mate, introduced one of the extension bills, a bipartisan effort, along with Democratic Sen. Peter Welch from Vermont and others.
Several ACP extension bills are currently sitting in Congress. The Senate Commerce Committee came close to attaching funding to the Spectrum and National Security Act in June, but that ultimately didn’t pan out.
“I am hoping for the best and I’m expecting the worst,” said Middleton, the CEO of Human-I-T. It’s an election year, Middleton noted, and “I understand that things are sometimes a little bit complicated in terms of what’s going to get funded.”
