The Biden-Harris Administration has announced that it has successfully secured commitments from over a dozen ISPs to cut prices and increase broadband speeds as part of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), an initiative meant to reduce internet service costs for millions of Americans and to bring high-speed internet into more lower-income households. These commitments will allow “tens of millions” of ACP-eligible households to get high-speed internet for free, according to a press released shared on the official White House website. AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon are among the providers that have had to agree to the program.
As part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the President and Vice President worked with Democrats and Republicans to create the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which allows tens of millions of American households to reduce their internet service costs by up to $30/month (or $75/month on Tribal lands). To ensure the most efficient use of those public dollars and to deliver maximum cost savings to families, the Biden-Harris Administration has secured commitments from 20 leading internet providers—covering more than 80% of the U.S. population across urban, suburban, and rural areas—to either increase speeds or cut prices, making sure they all offer ACP-eligible households high-speed, high-quality internet plans for no more than $30/month.
Source: The White House (via CNN)
Discussion (19 replies)
Join Discussion →Sure. Meanwhile my connection price keeps steadily going up in price.
Theres no charity here.
Exactly. Someone is paying for it. And that's the middle class neighborhoods.
I don't disagree with the program entirely. I think it could have been handled better though. The prices are only so high because they have effective monopolies in large, dense markets. Break that up, prices come down naturally because of competition.
I think, once a service becomes essential like I think broadband has, the government should step in to ensure equal access. And I'd agree that that statement extends to geographical as well as financial. But this just gave the cable companies a blank check in the guise of "forcing" them to sell cheaper internet to low income housing. They will recoup their losses, and make a handsome profit off of it -- usually by double dipping: getting government subsidies to cover the cost ~and~ raising rates on everyone else.
I agree with the sentiment, just not the method.
Just read through the announcement and it is well... crap. There is no provision for expanding footprint of broadband services. Meaning if you can't get broadband through any of these companies there is zero encouragement for them to deliver broadband to you.
I disagree. I do not think government should be involved. Government is the reason there are monopolies. Remove that factor and let competition come in.
Not everything is profitable. Competition only works if there is money to be made. Just as public transport is not profitable to make available everywhere doesn't mean you can leave some towns out of reach by bus / train. And who else would make this happen if not the government? Internet has become essential for life, so the government must make sure it is available to everyone as any utility.
It's not classified as a utility. It's a luxury service as far as the law is concerned. The only reason the government is involved is money. Whoever pays the local/state the most money gets the rights to run service in a given area. Google paid MASSIVE amounts of money to run fiber where cable and other fiber providers exists. The second they make it a utility their little honeypot of money ceases to exist.
I have mixed feelings about a utility.
On one hand, what Riccochet says is exactly true, and part of the problem. Broadband is not considered an essential utility -- but I think that it is in today's world. 100 years ago we were roughly in the same boat with electricity and telephone access.
Without being a Utility, anyone who can pay enough can get right-of-way access, and the underhanded part is that they can go beyond that and pay enough to prevent anyone else from getting them (usually via political connections). But - that doesn't include any provision or requirement to ensure equal access (either geographically or financially). You aren't officially a utility, but you effectively get to be a monopoly by employing anti-competitive tactics under the table. Oh, they will claim they have competition, and in some (select) marketplaces, they may actually. But most will point to Hughesnet (high altitude satellite) or Cellular access (with extremely limiting caps) and say that's competition and use that as justification against antitrust investigations.
Being classified as an official utility - you get a government mandate to be a monopoly in an area. No one else can compete with your franchise rights, and you get to make a guaranteed rate of return, although it's subject to oversight. The flip side of getting to be the only kid on the block is that you have regulations that state you have to include everyone -- both geographically and financially.
I am hoping wireless connectivity (either cellular or low-altitude satellite) blows up the wired industry and actually provides some level of competition. I know they will never get parity, but they get closer all the time.
Utilities suck. A lot of them abuse their privilege. If you get to make a guaranteed 8% margin, you are incentivized to make everything cost as much as it absolutely can - you just have to stack the oversight board with sympathetic voices (ex-vice presidents and the state Governor, in the example of my local electrical utility) that will vote to approve your spending plans and rate hikes. And there can be no real competition.
Telecoms being ISPs - they get to abuse the right of ways they have for their utility service and use that for non-utility functions (being the ISP). Even though in many markets, telecom has moved to digital anyway, and in a technical sense, telephony is just another data stream on the digital network; and the utility mandate only applies to the telecom aspect of it.
Cable companies got in early before there was really any other use for those right of ways, and not being utilities don't have any obligation to serve low income or geographically spares areas.
Now both protect their right-of-ways rigorously to prevent anyone else from coming in and laying cable or fiber or any other competing access.
In both cases - Riccochet is right. Government is a huge part of the problem. But I can't think of any way that works to provide equal access to a necessary utility without government also being a part of the solution.
Government is not a problem. Bad, corrupted government is.
It should be classified as an utility. I'm not into the nuances of US local authorities. But this seems more like a corruption problem than a government = bad problem.
Should be and is are not the same. And all government is corrupt when there is money involved. Big money in this case.
I'm sure this will produce the same results of all the other agreements that ISPs have made to increase coverage and access.
I'm not even concerned with cheaper or faster Internet at this point. I just want a connection that doesn't cut out multiple times per month. Fuck you, Comcast.
From about 2002-2003 to 2013, that was my life with Comcast. Switched to Verizon FiOS and sh1t has been pretty rock-solid since.
I'd take FIOS in a heartbeat. This weekend I turned down almost double speed at a lower price from Comcast because I don't want another 24 month contract. I'm rolling the dice on Starlink when my kit arrives, hopefully this year.
I think most people would take FIOS in a heartbeat. That's the problem. Verizon can't bring FIOS to new markets because .... the local governments won't let them, because the local cable companies and telecoms have blocked them out.