A stack of computers waits to be cleaned and sorted for donation on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at the Kramden Institute in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo credit: Alexandria deRosset/UNC Media Center)
Alexander Drosset, University of North Carolina Media Center
If Congress does not provide more funding for the Affordable Connectivity Initiative, more than 900,000 North Carolina households will be without access to affordable internet by the end of April.
Launched on December 31, 2021, the program provides eligible low-income households with discounts of up to $30 per month on Internet service. Families on tribal lands can receive discounts of up to $75 per month. Participants also receive a one-time discount on a new tablet or laptop.
“For some people, ACP is their only line to the internet, and it’s the only way they can afford internet,” said Lacey Dixon, outreach coordinator at the Kramden Institute in Durham, N.C. (Lacey Dickerson) said.
Kramden is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving digital literacy by providing people with refurbished computers at low cost, as well as computer certification and skills courses. As Kramden’s outreach coordinator, Dixon focuses on getting people to join ACP.
But with funding for the program set to run out in April, affordable internet for many North Carolinians is in jeopardy.
According to the North Carolina Department of Broadband and Digital Equity, ACP is a critical part of closing the digital divide between those who have access to technology, internet, and digital literacy training and those who do not gap.
“High-speed internet connectivity is now critical to every industry,” said Nate Denny, deputy secretary for broadband and digital assets at the North Carolina Department of Information Technology. “The ability to learn from home, work from home, find work outside the community, access telehealth services, entertainment — everyone needs that connection.”
In North Carolina, the average cost of an Internet subscription is $60 per month, Denny said.
According to the Federal Communications Commission, an internet subscription should cost less than 2% of a household’s monthly income to be affordable. Denney said $60 a month is too high for 1.3 million North Carolinians.
“We still have a lot of work to do to ensure people have access [the internet] And affordable,” Danny said. “If ACP disappears, this job will become more difficult. ”
Congress allocated $14.2 billion to establish the ACP, making it the largest Internet affordability program in U.S. history. The program was created as part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and is a follow-up to the Emergency Broadband Benefit, which helped households afford internet access during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In January, the FCC announced the affordability program would end without additional funding from Congress. ACP stopped accepting applications on February 7, and by May, funding for the program will disappear and the full cost of the internet subscription service will be passed on to customers.
Nationwide, more than 23 million households use ACP to get online, according to the FCC. Before the program was implemented, more than two-thirds of households had spotty or no internet connections, according to a 2023 FCC survey.
Nearly a third of respondents said they would no longer use internet services if ACP ends. According to the FCC, many respondents said if their monthly Internet bill increased by $30, they would deduct money from other bills or cut other expenses, such as food or gas.
Households with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, or those participating in federal assistance programs such as SNAP or Medicaid, were eligible for ACP benefits before the program stopped accepting applications in February. Community nonprofits like Kramden work to get qualifying families into ACP.
In March 2023, Kramden became one of four programs in the state to receive FCC funding to support its enrollment efforts. In December, Dixon, Cramden’s outreach coordinator, hosted a pop-up event in Durham to get more families to join ACP.
“I’ve just helped sign up a few people over the past few months. That was before we knew the ACP wasn’t going to be refunded,” Dixon said.
Dixon was originally hired to help get more people signed up for the ACP. She said the end of the project felt like a whiplash for her.
Recently, she had to call the program’s participants — some of whom had just joined — and tell them their internet subscriptions would no longer be covered.
“Honestly, it makes me want to puke,” Dixon said. “It also undermines the trust we have built in the community.”
The end of ACP comes with no clear next steps for families who rely on the program to provide affordable internet.
When the program ends, participating families will see their monthly bills increase by at least $30. Internet providers must send at least two notices to ACP participants explaining that the plan is ending, how and when the end of ACP will affect their bills, and that customers can cancel their Internet service after the plan ends.
“It’s going to be a scare,” Dixon said. “That panic will creep in, like, ‘How am I going to afford this next month?'”
Meanwhile, some members of Congress are pushing for more funding. In January, bipartisan representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate introduced the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which would provide an additional $7 billion in funding for the ACP. Congress has yet to act on the bill since its introduction.
In North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper has been emphasizing to North Carolina congressional representatives the importance of funding ACP, said Undersecretary for Broadband and Digital Equity Denney.
“This really needs to be a federal action if we’re going to get this done,” Denny said.
North Carolina would need to spend $27 million per month to provide Internet access to the 900,000 households enrolled in ACP. Danny said it was a huge expense.
“The problems we’re trying to solve are bipartisan, so the solutions are bipartisan, so I’m encouraged by that,” Denney said. “That said, there are a lot of things Congress is trying to do right now.”
Congress could choose to act on the bill and commit more money to the ACP.
“It’s a matter of priorities,” Denny said.
Some internet providers in North Carolina offer cheaper plans for low-income households.
For example, Verizon offers low-cost Internet plans starting at $20 per month, according to its website. AT&T has a low-cost plan starting at $30 per month. Both companies accept ACP benefits and have not announced changes to their low-cost plans after ACP ends.
“We hope that as we move forward, we will be able to set aside and sustainably fund the Affordable Connectivity Initiative,” said AT&T North Carolina President Trey Rabon.
Still, nothing is certain. For families who rely on ACP, losing their internet subscription means losing telemedicine, distance learning, job opportunities and more.
“The digital divide has always been there. But I don’t think people really understood how big an impact it was until the pandemic,” said Cindy Yoe-Robinson, executive director of Durham-based nonprofit Kramden.
Yu-Robinson said most of the people who attend ACP in Kramden are seniors, retirees or from low-income families.
Yu-Robinson said for many people served by Cramden, completing the ACP sign-up process or following up on bills from their internet providers was difficult.
One of them is Mari Howerton, a 74-year-old who spent months on the phone with her internet provider trying to get an ACP discount before discovering she hadn’t completed her application.
“Then why didn’t you say it two months ago?” Howden said. “This is crazy. And then I get [the ACP discount] And then that’s the ending, so I don’t know. It’s hard to stay on top of everything. ”
For families who rely on ACP and people like Dixon who are working to improve internet access, the waiting game is frustrating.
“Really, all we can do is try to give [ACP participants] resources so they feel empowered to make the decisions that are best for their finances and their families,” Dixon said.
Participants were spread across rural and urban areas of the state. In County Durham, where Cramden is located, more than 24,000 households use ACP. In Wake County, 53,970 families rely on the program. Mecklenburg County has 77,246 households participating.
A study from the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society shows that enrollment in rural North Carolina is higher than initially predicted, but enrollment among rural households is less than among urban households.
As of June 2023, more than 217,000 rural households in the state were enrolled in ACP, according to research from the Benton Institute.
Rural areas of North Carolina lack the internet infrastructure that urban areas of the state have. In those unserved and underserved places, even households that can afford high-speed internet cannot access it because the infrastructure is not there.
The state is using money from two federal programs to close that gap. The first program, called the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program (BEAD), is part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that funded the ACP. North Carolina has $1.53 billion in BEAD funding planned to build more broadband infrastructure and support digital literacy and skills training.
The state will also use $971 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds it received during the pandemic to fund broadband deployment. Internet providers submit plans to the state, and the most qualified projects receive funding to build broadband infrastructure.
“We have to get new service in areas that aren’t getting any service and upgrade service in areas where speeds are slow or unreliable,” said Denny, deputy state secretary for broadband and digital assets.
Denney said that so far, $400,000 in state funds has been used to build broadband infrastructure projects that will serve 150,000 North Carolina homes.
“Next year, someone will be able to turn on the modem,” Denny said. “Someone can do homework at home or make a doctor’s appointment.”
Such a change could have ripple effects on families across the state. However, for households that struggle to afford internet, broadband infrastructure appears to be less important.
“When you think about some of the internet providers that don’t serve rural populations, taking away their ACP means taking away their internet access,” Dixon said.
Dixon said she worries about the impact the sudden price increase will have on families participating in ACP.
“All I can see or predict is that a lot of people and families are going to be in dire straits,” Dickerson said.