FCC Chairman Wants to Cut Back Program That Helps Poor People Get Affordable Internet

By AARON MAK at Slate

https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/lifeline-program-affordable-internet-poor-fcc-chairman-proposal.html

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FCC chairman Ajit Pai is proposing to scale down the Lifeline program, which offers subsidies for internet and phone service to low-income Americans. The plan would effectively cut affordable internet access through the program for 8 million people, about 70 percent of the Lifeline’s recipients. This reduction would be particularly devastating for Puerto Rico, where about 500,000 people, or 17 percent of the population, have relied on the Lifeline program since Hurricane Maria.

Last week, 11 Democratic senators, including California Sen. Kamala Harris and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, sent a letter to the FCC asking the commission to reconsider the cut backs. “The Lifeline Program is essential for millions of Americans who rely on subsidized internet access to find jobs, schedule doctor’s appointments, complete their school assignments, interface with the government, and remain connected in a digital economy,” the letter reads, in part. “The program helps Americans—including disproportionate numbers of families with children, veterans and people of color—survive.” A group of 68 House members sent a similar letter.

Under the current program, people at or below 135 percent of the federal poverty guidelines are eligible to buy a discounted internet and phone subscription for $9.25 per month. The Reagan administration introduced Lifeline in 1985 to subsidize phone service, and it was expanded in 2016 to include internet. Pai’s revisions to the program would prevent smaller companies known as resellers, which don’t have their own infrastructure, from buying network capacity from big telecom providers and then selling it back to low-income consumers at cheaper rates. A majority of Lifeline recipients purchase their internet access from resellers.

“Removing resellers from the program is going to significantly undermine the reach and usefulness of the program,” Eric Null, policy counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute, told Slate. “If the proposal goes through, those folks need to either be transitioned to a new Lifeline provider or would lose their access completely.” (New America is a partner with Slate and Arizona State University in Future Tense.)

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