WASHINGTON — Thursday is the deadline to get ahead on cost-cutting options to reduce your monthly internet bill.
A deadline to apply for the Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which has allowed many low-income Americans to get internet service at a reduced cost, will arrive before Midnight. 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.
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.
The deadline to apply to the current round of funding is 11:59 p.m. ET on February 7. To qualify, customers must have established Internet service with a provider before they apply to ACP.
Discount Internet qualifications
A person or household can qualify for ACP:
- Based on your household income, which must be 200% or less than the Federal Poverty Guidelines.
- If you or your child or dependent participate in certain government assistance programs such as SNAP, Medicaid, WIC, or other programs.
- If you or anyone in your household already receives a Lifeline benefit.
Income guidelines
For example, a person may qualify for the program if their incoming is $29,160 or less. A family of four may qualify if the household income is $60,000 or less.
Federal assistance programs
An applicant may need to show proof of enrollment in another federal assistance program to qualify for ACP. Those programs include:
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as Food Stamps
- Medicaid
- Your Medicaid eligibility may be up for renewal. Learn more about how to renew (Spanish language information).
- Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
- Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
- Federal Public Housing Assistance (FPHA) (including Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) Program (Section 8 Vouchers), Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA)/202/811, Public Housing, and Affordable Housing Programs for American Indians, Alaska Natives or Native Hawaiians)
- Veterans Pension and Survivors Benefit
- Free and Reduced-Price School Lunch Program or School Breakfast Program, including at U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Community Eligibility Provision schools
- Received a Federal Pell Grant in the current award year
To let us know how WCNC Charlotte can help you get ahead in 2024, email us at newstips@wcnc.com.
Lifeline benefit
Those already receiving the Lifeline benefit from the Federal Communications Commission automatically qualify for ACP and can receive both benefits simultaneously.
Child or dependent
A household may qualify for ACP if any member of the house, including a child or dependent, participates in the Free and Reduced-Price School Lunch Program or is enrolled in a USDA Community Eligibility Provision school.
Pandemic-related funding
“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.
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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