WAUKESHA — Due to a lack of additional funding from Congress, April will be the last fully funded month of a program aimed at providing affordable high-speed internet service. The Affordable Connectivity Program stopped accepting new applications as of February 7, 2024. In Wisconsin, more than 422,985 homes could will lose this benefit.
The Affordable Connectivity Program is an FCC benefit program that helps ensure that households can afford the broadband they need for work, school, health care and more.
It provides a discount of up to $30 per month toward internet service for eligible households and up to $75 per month for households on qualifying Tribal lands. Eligible households can also receive a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop computer, or tablet from participating providers if they contribute more than $10 and less than $50 toward the purchase price.
The Affordable Connectivity Program is limited to one monthly service discount and one device discount per household.
A household is eligible for the Affordable Connectivity Program if its income is at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. There are other ways a person could qualify such as receiving free or reduced lunch or belonging to the SNAP program, among other qualifiers.
In Waukesha County there are 14,901 households enrolled in the ACP. According to the 2020 Census, that’s 9.3% of the 159,780 households in the county. The ACP replaced the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) Program, another affordable internet program, on Dec. 31, 2021, according to the FCC website. Households enrolled in the ACP have their internet bills lowered by between $30-$75 per month.
The EBB Program, which ran from May 12, 2021 to Dec. 31, 2021, disbursed a total of $836,604 to Wisconsin households. The ACP, which replaced EBB and ran from Jan. 1, 2022 until now, disbursed a total of $7,119,276 to Wisconsin households. Together, the programs disbursed a total of $7,955,881.
For issues with your ACP provider not following FCC wind-down proceedings, visit the FCC Consumer Complaint Center at https://Consumer Complaints.fcc.gov.
