Unless Congress takes action, the Affordable Connectivity Program is estimated to fail in April, meaning the end of internet subsidies for 23 million U.S. households.
Deb Ruggiero, a Jamestown resident who served in the state Legislature from 2009 to 2022, said it’s important to keep the program online for the 81,000 Rhode Island families that rely on it. It emphasizes gender.
In an op-ed distributed Monday through his company, DR Communications Group (“Time for affordable internet is running out”), Ruggiero said the program, administered by the Federal Communications Commission, We need a long-term solution to keep routers lit.” Please continue in this country. ”
“Everyone agrees that fast, reliable, and affordable high-speed internet is not a luxury, but a necessity in 21st century society,” she wrote. “We don’t ‘go online’ anymore. We live online. ”
As a state representative, Mr. Ruggiero served as chairman of the House Internet and Technology Committee and successfully sponsored broadband legislation to access funding through the National Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program.
Almost 1 in 6 eligible households nationwide will receive a $30 monthly subsidy starting in January 2022 following the passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Act that provides $14.2 billion for the Affordable Connectivity Program. are receiving. But that money is about to run out.
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“This means the end of subsidies for monthly internet bills and an economic cliff for Rhode Islanders,” she wrote. “For those who do not read the notice from their internet service provider that the subsidy ends and market rates may apply, this could cause serious credit concerns.
“There is a bipartisan bill in the bitterly divided U.S. Congress that would extend the Affordable Connections Program through December. It is questionable whether Congress can even act on it, but the extension… is only temporary.”
Meanwhile, Ruggiero said thousands of Rhode Island seniors and veterans who were “finally digitally connected” through the program will lose access.
Ruggiero said if Congress doesn’t act, states should enact consumer protection laws to protect seniors, veterans and low-income households. He also suggested that internet service providers have a grace period after April to “ensure that people who can’t afford to pay low credit ratings are not burdened with credit ratings because they can no longer afford their internet costs.”
“If Congress does not extend federal programs, what is the solution and who will pay for it? If this is a cost that states have to bear, no one in state government has budgeted hundreds of millions of dollars. ISPs, as an industry, have the potential to secure funding to pay for billions of dollars of doing business in the state, whether the ACP ends in April of this year or in December. Whether it ends next year or not, it will end eventually. What is the long-term solution to keep all Rhode Islanders connected?”
Ruggiero urges people to contact their representatives in Congress through the Don’t Disconnect US website “while the internet still exists.”