The Benton Institute for Broadband and Society reports…

There is a positive and significant correlation between broadband adoption growth and Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) enrollment. As of December 2022, ACP was aiding one in every eight residential broadband connections in metro and urban counties in the United States, many of them new subscribers.

New analysis of the 2022 American Community Survey (ACS) and ACP enrollment data points to important findings as Members of Congress consider additional funding for ACP.

• First, places that have experienced strong broadband adoption growth in recent years generally have higher-than-expected rates of ACP enrollment, pointing to the likelihood that ACP has had an impact on that growth.
• Second, places where ACP enrollment growth was strong throughout the 2022 calendar year tend to have above-average broadband subscription levels in 2022 data.

These findings come from analysis of ACS 2022 data at the county level and 2022 ACP enrollment data, also at the county level. The ability to match government-collected broadband adoption data with ACP enrollment in the same geographies offers a unique opportunity to draw early lessons on ACP’s effectiveness. For the counties included in this analysis, subscriptions to broadband of any type grew by 3.5 percentage points from 2019-2021 and a more modest 0.7 points from 2021-22. By the end of 2022, 12.5 million households were enrolled in ACP in the counties analyzed in this report, or 1 out of 8 broadband subscriptions of any sort.

It would be interesting to know how much money taxpayers save when more people get online. One tiny example, once everyone gets online a government agency can stop sending paper newsletters and send via email. Think of the saving in printing and postage. Could that money be reallocated to sustain the ACP?