FCC boss Tom Wheeler is circulating a new proposal among FCC Commissioners aimed at subsidizing broadband service for the poor. According to FCC leaks to the NY Times, the FCC will focus on modifying Lifeline, a program started in 1985 by the Reagan administration to subsidize landline telephone service, so it will help provide broadband to low-income communities.
The specifics of the deal remain confidential, but will likely face the now-familiar partisan vote at the agency's June 18 meeting. According to the leak, the proposal will also include a number of new anti-fraud measures aimed at stopping abuse of the program.
Lifeline, eRate, and other Universal Service Fund programs have been criticized for years because of endless tales of fraud, with carriers and companies often taking billions without the FCC adequately tracking how that money was spent. Only in the last few years have we seen a push toward meaningful reform.
The FCC has long had an eye on reconfiguring Lifeline, the USF and E-rate programs so they help subsidize low-income broadband, but as wiith most efforts of this kind, few want to pay for it. How the funding for this initiative will work remains unclear; the FCC had to originally quietly back away from a plan to impose new broadband taxes, since that's obviously immensely unpopular for users already paying a premium for bandwidth.
Pew data shows that 54% of those making $30,000 a year have broadband, compared to 88% of those making more than $75,000. 53% of Hispanics and 64% of blacks in the United States have high-speed Internet at home, compared with 74% of whites.
Of course there's other ways the FCC intends to help low-income communities, including trying to drive additional competition to many markets. The agency hoped to do that in part by raising the standard definition of broadband to 25 Mbps (to highlight connectivity gaps), and by striking down protectionist state laws lobbied for by incumbent ISPs to protect their duopoly power.
While this doesn't include all the specifics of the FCC's plan, the agency has been circulating a
fact sheet on the proposal with a little more detail.