The Affordable Connectivity Program Kept Them Online. What Now?
“I’m paying around $35 per month now, and that’s with $30 off my bill,” Perez says. “So eventually I’ll pay more than $60 per month.” This past weekend he used his data plan, which he uses for internet on his phone, to help out a former roommate who lives on a fixed income, and whose own internet access was so limited that he was having a hard time processing paperwork. “He’ll send me his housing documents and I’ll upload them for him,” Perez says. “If we want to close our nation’s digital divide, the Affordable Connectivity Program is not nice-to-have, it’s need-to-have,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement in late February, when the program’s end was imminent. “We’ve come too far to turn back now.” That plea didn’t work. According to a FCC survey of ACP recipients released in December 2023, 77 percent of respondents said that losing their ACP benefit would disrupt their internet service by forcing them to change their plan or cancel their service entirely. About half of respondents said …