Over the past few years, the Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, has allowed many low-income Americans to get internet service at a reduced cost. The ACP is an initiative run by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that provides discounts for broadband internet and devices to people with low incomes.
Multiple VERIFY readers sent us emails and text messages to ask if a claim that the ACP is expected to run out of funding this year is true.
THE QUESTION
Is the ACP expected to run out of funding this year?
THE SOURCES
Congressional testimony from FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel
Consolidated Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2021 and Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
Paul Garnett, founder of the Vernonburg Group, which is an internet policy consulting firm that focuses on broadband access
Optimum, an internet service provider
THE ANSWER
Yes, the ACP is expected to run out of funding as soon as April 2024.
WHAT WE FOUND
The ACP, a FCC program designed to provide broadband internet discounts to low-income Americans, does not have permanent funding. The FCC projects the ACP will run out of its currently available funds by April 2024.
“Our current projections indicate that our appropriated funds to continue this program and keep these households connected will run out by April of next year,” FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told Congress on Nov. 30, 2023.
If the ACP runs out of funding, Optimum, an internet service provider, says its customers on ACP discounts will be “charged the regular, undiscounted rate” for their chosen internet services. Verizon says its internet customers with ACP discounts will either continue on their plan without the discount or end their internet services from Verizon if the ACP ends. Other internet service providers have similar warnings about rising costs or potential end of service for customers with ACP discounts.
The FCC’s funding projection is consistent with those made by civil society organizations and internet policy experts.
A May 10, 2023 letter from the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights projected the ACP would exhaust its funding during the second quarter of 2024. The estimate was based on the ACP’s rate of expenditure, which the Leadership Conference said was roughly $500 million a month.
Paul Garnett, founder of the Vernonburg Group, which is an internet policy consulting firm that focuses on broadband access, projected in both June 2022 and March 2023 that the ACP will likely exhaust its funds by the middle of 2024.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) also projected in March 2023 that the ACP would become insolvent “as early as 2024.”
This is because funding from the program comes from two bills that granted the program funds “to remain available until expended.”
The first was the Consolidated Appropriations Act for fiscal year 2021, which established what it at the time called the “Emergency Broadband Benefit Program.” The program was originally intended as a benefit for the “emergency period relating to COVID-19.”
That bill set aside $3.2 billion for the program.
Nearly a year later, in late 2021, the program was renamed the Affordable Connectivity Program and given an additional $14.2 billion in funding by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Since then, the program has not received any additional funding and has not been included in any budget bill signed into law.
If the program did receive additional funding then it would have the funding to continue well beyond April 2024.
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