WASHINGTON, January 13, 2024 – The Federal Communications Commission will start to shut down a key internet subsidy program for low-income households early next month, but one provider thinks the agency needs to do more.

The FCC said Thursday that the Affordable Connectivity Program will stop accepting new enrollments after February 7. New internet access providers can’t join the program after that date, either.

According to MVNO provider TruConnect, the FCC needs to broaden its plan. The virtual wireless company said the agency should freeze the ability of current ACP enrollees to transfer their benefits to another internet provider after February 7.

“A benefit transfer freeze during this time is in the best interest of ACP households, ACP providers, program integrity and program efficiency until funding either expires or is reappropriated,” TruConnect’s lawyer Judson H. Hill said in a filing posted on the FCC’s website today.

Hill said he communicated TruConnect’s position on Jan. 9 to Noah Stein, Deputy Bureau Chief of the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau, which issued the FCC’s 15-page ACP shutdown order two days later.

FCC’s shutdown order restricts the transfer of ACP benefits

According to the FCC, about 22 million low-income households have enrolled in the ACP, which Congress established in late 2021 with $14.2 billion to take $30 off monthly internet bills. The program’s last full month will be April without new funding by Congress, the FCC said.

The FCC’s rules provide that “households may transfer their ACP service benefit once per calendar month, with limited exceptions.”

In Thursday’s order, the FCC said it would not “require providers to perform transfer-in transactions for enrolled ACP households seeking to transfer their benefit.”

Instead, the FCC said it will allow “providers to choose whether to accept transfers after the ACP enrollment freeze.”

TruConnect didn’t provide any specifics behind its support for a transfer freeze.

In his discussion with the FCC’s Stein, Hill said he “emphasized that once program enrollments are frozen, that to achieve an orderly program wind down until funding expires that the [FCC] should also freeze ACP household subscriber benefit transfers between ACP programs providers.”

TruConnect’s website is effectively a portal to sign up ACP households and includes offers such as free 8 GB of high-speed data, free unlimited talk and text, and an option to buy a tablet for $10.01.

The ACP is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Co. under the FCC’s oversight. USAC’s website does not appear to have information on how many ACP enrollees have transferred to a new internet provider during the 24-month life of the ACP, which was created to help struggling Americans rebound from the pandemic.

Ted Hearn is the Editor of Policyband, a new website dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the broadband communications market. This piece was published on Policyband on January 12, 2024, and is reprinted with permission.

LAS VEGAS, January 12, 2024 – Industry stakeholders called for federal data privacy legislation at CES on Thursday.

“I think oftentimes companies can be in the position of opposing additional regulation at the federal level,” said Melanie Tiano, director of federal regulatory affairs at T-Mobile. “But this is probably one of those areas where that’s not the case, in part because of the flurry of activity going on at the state level, which makes compliance in the U.S. marketplace extraordinarily confusing and difficult.”

The New Jersey legislature cleared one such bill on Monday. If that’s signed into law by the state’s governor, it would bring the number up to 13. Federal efforts, notably the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, have stalled in recent years.

“We will continue to be seriously committed to getting legislation done in a bipartisan way. That’s not always easy right now, but we’re continuing to work on that” said Tim Kurth, chief counsel for the House Innovation, Data and Commerce Subcommittee.

Simone Hall Wood, privacy and public policy manager at Meta, said “privacy regulation should not inhibit beneficial uses of data.” The company has argued it has a legitimate interest in data use practices that the European Union has found to be out of compliance with its data privacy law, the GDPR.

Industry groups, including the Consumer Technology Association, which runs the CES conference, have advocated for a light-touch privacy law in the United States, in contrast with the more comprehensive European standard.

Kurth had similar thoughts Thursday, saying the GDPR “really hurt startups and really hurt innovations.”

Still, Woods said establishing a uniform standard is something the law does well.

“It sets certainty across the marketplace for what privacy protections look like for consumers. And so that aspect of it is positive,” she said.

LAS VEGAS, January 12, 2024 – A senior National Telecommunications and Information Administration advisor and the chief lawyers for both Democratic and Republican sides of the House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology talked about their spectrum policy priorities on Thursday at CES.

The group touted U.S. wins at the World Radiocommunication Conference in Dubai, as well as lawmakers’ goals for spectrum auction authority heading into 2024.

World Radio Congress

Going into the conference, in which representatives from around the world meet to coordinate spectrum usage, “the 6 GigaHertz (GHz) issue was the top priority of the U.S. government,” said Phil Murphy, a senior advisor at the NTIA.

The band was set aside in 2020 by the Federal Communications Commission for unlicensed use in the United States, but some countries like China wanted to see some of the band tapped for 5G mobile use, Murphy said.

The U.S. delegation was ultimately able to deliver in December: the conference decision set aside 700 MegaHertz (MHz) for mobile, but left the door open for regulatory agencies to approve unlicensed use throughout the band.

That’s a win for the American Wi-Fi industry: the Wi-Fi alliance announced its official Wi-Fi 7 certification on Monday ahead of the tech conference. The new generation supports wider spectrum channels and multi-link operation, both of which will make use of the 1,200 MHz of real estate in the 6 GHz band.

“We’re really excited by the results,” Murphy said. “We’re really excited to see 6 GHz moving forward, not just here in the United States, but in other parts of the world as well.”

Auction authority

The Federal Communications Commission’s authority to auction and issue licenses for the commercial use of electromagnetic spectrum expired for the first time in March 2023. That’s not an issue for technologies like Wi-Fi, which don’t require such licenses to operate in bands set aside for unlicensed use, but it is important for ever-expanding 5G networks and wireless broadband.

“The Chair’s number one priority is to reauthorize the FCC spectrum auction authority that expired in March,” said Kate O’Connor, chief counsel for the Republican majority on the communications and technology subcommittee. “Even if it hasn’t been public, there’s been a lot going on behind the scenes.”

Jennifer Epperson, chief counsel for the Democratic side of the subcommittee, and Murphy, the NTIA advisor, agreed on the importance of the issue. 

“I think reauthorizing the FCC’s spectrum auction authority is a priority for the administration as well,” he said. “There’s probably spectrum that the FCC has available to auction right now, but they can’t because they don’t have the authority to do so.”

At a House oversight hearing in November, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said “I have a bunch of bands sitting in the closet at the FCC,” pointing to 550 MHz in the 12.7-13.25 GHz band as spectrum the agency could go to auction with “relatively quickly.”

Efforts at blanket reauthorization have stalled publicly since a bill cleared the House Energy and Commerce Committee in May, but a stopgap measure allowing the Commission to issue licenses that had been purchased before the lapse was signed into law in December.

“With the funding bills coming up, we’re taking a look and hoping that we can turn this on as soon as possible,” O’Connor said.