I was spurred by Benton Institute for Society’s list, What are [National] ISPs Offering Consumers After ACP?, to take a look at what providers in Minnesota are doing now that federal funding for broadband subsidies for low-income households (ACP) has stopped. I started with a list created by the Office of Broadband Development of Broadband Providers by County. I checked out the websites of the providers on the list to see if I could find mention of any deals on their website or (for some if ambiguous) sought more info via email.
At a high level, here’s what I found:
- There were 112 providers
- 8 providers have programs akin to the ACP discount
- 52 provides mention federal (Lifeline) and state (TAP) subsidies for low-income households
- 41 providers make no mention of discounts
- 3 providers mention ACP as if it’s still happening
- Several mention discounts, such as for students, seasonal accounts or free Wifi in public spaces in the community
Here are the providers I found with an ACP-like discount include:
- Netwave
- Arvig
- Garden Valley
- Ace Telephone
- BEVCOMM
- Vast
- MVTV Wireless
- USI
And here’s the list from Benton with a presence (even mobile-only) in MN with an ACP-like discount:
- AT&T
- Comcast
- Mediacom
- Spectrum/Charter
- Verizon
There are some caveats. I didn’t bother with folks on Benton’s list. I condensed as much as possible; if a company went by several names, I tracked them once. I didn’t include satellite-only providers. Also – I’m going to call this a list in progress, because policies change. If I have missed something, please let me know: atreacy@treacyinfo.com. Also, as a website developer of 30 years, I know for sure the webmaster, isn’t always the first to know. But I wasn’t going to make 100+ phone calls. You can access a spreadsheet of the information I tracked.
It’s hard to draw conclusions because each provider is different. I will point to a recent podcast (Connect This!) from the Institute for Local Self Reliance, where host, Christopher Mitchell, talks to industry leaders Robert Boyle, Travis Carter, Kim McKinley, and Blair Levin because these talk about how/why a provider might try to continue their own version of ACP. Slight spoiler: providers are happy to do good (continue an essential service) especially if they are generating some income. But it’s difficult to continuing offering a service for a loss, which means it makes more sense when there are more customers and cost to build and maintain is lower. They also dive into higher level need providers have for more customers (which ACP brought) to recoup costs and some providers have been counting on that bump in customers when creating plans for future builds.
Anecdotally, many fixed wireless providers don’t mention federal/state subsidies. Perhaps because that’s a newer industry than telecom and perhaps less aware of the role subsidies can play in building infrastructure. Also, some companies post their discounts prominently, others do not.