Keynote Remarks: Closing the Digital Divide
Alan Davidson, NTIA Administrator and Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information
Blog Post
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June 14, 2023
Alan Davidson, NTIA Administrator and Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications delivered keynote remarks at Closing the Digital Divide: The Affordable Connectivity Program on the Ground and in DC. Hosted by New America’s Open Technology Institute, Network:On, and Public Knowledge, the June 14th event gathered a multistakeholder group to discuss the value of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and garner support for sustained funding past 2024. Administrator Davidson shared ACP success stories and the work federal and local governments are doing to help connect millions of Americans who do not have internet access. The following are a clean verbatim transcription of his remarks.
I do want to thank New America and Network:On and Public Knowledge for organizing today's event. It really salutes this diverse and expert group we brought together to talk about the Affordable Connectivity Program. It is wonderful to be back at New America and to be with so many of you who have been contributing to the success of the Internet for All Program, which is my current obsession and devotion at NTIA.
Today kicks off the Biden-Harris Administration's Affordable Connectivity Program Week of Action. We have more than 300 organizations from across the country committed to raising awareness about the ACP. To start, I’d just like to say a little bit about what's really at stake when we talk about the Affordable Connectivity Program and Internet for All. I don't have to tell you folks in this room that the internet is now the essential communications tool in our modern world. It is essential for access to work, access to education, access to health care, access to justice. Yet today here in America in 2023, millions of people across the country still lack access to an affordable high speed internet connection or lack the means and the skills to use it.
The recent FCC map that just came out showed over 8.3 million households and offices still without basic internet service, still unserved under the map’s definition. It’s just one more data point in this story that we all know.
So that's about to change. We've been talking about the digital divide in this country for more than 20 years. But thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law, we now have the resources to do something serious and structural about it. The law provides $65 billion in new funding to invest in a simple and ambitious mission for all of us to connect everyone across America to affordable, reliable high speed internet service.
We are calling this initiative Internet for All, and we mean all. The ACP is at the heart of the Biden-Harris Administration's efforts to make the dream of internet for all a reality. Today affordability is not a luxury. It is a necessity. If we want to reach our goal of helping Americans thrive online, a connection alone is not enough. A connection to a family's home doesn't help that family if they can't afford the service.
Nothing illustrates the importance of an affordable connection quite like the real world stories that we've heard, that I've heard, from the people all across the country. Our team recently spoke with Robin Johnson, who's an educator on the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe reservation. Through the whole COVID-19 pandemic, Robin was struggling to balance her own workload with her children's needs for the very limited bandwidth in their home. She needed a faster internet connection, but with her husband out of work, she couldn't afford one.
Thanks to NTIA’s Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program, a local provider was able to offer cheaper service to families like Robin's in her community. And then thanks to the $75 subsidy provided under the ACP for tribal communities, Robin and her family can afford that service. We've written her story up on our website, but now that Robin and her children can get ahead in school, they’re not falling behind and Robin's not falling behind either.
Stories like this, and we have many of them, illustrate why ACP is so essential to ensure that millions of low income Americans can get online. In fact, more than 18 million households are already saving an estimated $600 million per month with this program. We know that nearly half of all eligible households are still learning about the incredible benefits that they can receive. I am confident that as we better inform these households on the benefits of ACP, many more will sign up. That’s part of where you all come in.
ACP is critical to connect these households and it's also critical for the success of our broadband infrastructure programs. People need to be able to afford to get online and providers need the certainty that they'll have customers, especially in rural and low income communities, before they deploy their networks. NTIA’s BEAD Program, our state grant program, requires that participating ISPs offer a low cost option. ACP helps ensure that providers can deliver on this requirement in all corners of the country and ultimately meet the broader goal of connecting everyone in America to affordable, reliable, high speed internet service.
I just want to emphasize there's a tie in here. We care about the success of our state grant program, which relies on having a low cost option to make sure that there's affordability, but our deployment also is at risk without ACP. I'd say that our broad goal of closing the digital divide is at risk, because ACP is at risk of running out of money. We cannot allow this program which has widespread support to fail. We see the support that's out there in so many ways.
I am particularly grateful for President Biden's leadership, as well as the tireless efforts of Chairwoman Rosenworcel and the entire team at the FCC who've been building out this program. They've done an outstanding job of getting ACP to where it is today. Of course, I appreciate the support that we've seen from service providers who've embraced ACP, and many of whom stepped up last year to offer affordable plans under the program. But I have to say I'm most grateful to all of you, to the people in this room who are getting the word out to diverse communities throughout the country, ensuring that everyone can benefit from ACP.
And now there's a new task in front of all of us, ensuring that ACP is on firm financial footing going forward. To accomplish this goal, I really have two asks for all of you. First, please make your voices heard in this conversation. Let your federal lawmakers know how important this program has been to people in your community and the communities you work with. Make sure they understand the real world impact, the real life impact, that an affordable high speed internet connection can have. And remind them how difficult it will be to deliver that connection to everyone in this country without the help of a vital tool like ACP.
The second big thing is really to continue to make sure Americans know about the ACP and even as we work to put the program on firm financial footing, we need to make sure that people use it. Let households know they can check their eligibility, sign up, and find fully covered internet plans at getinternet.gov. We can't assume that people know about this program. We have to provide the information and resources that they need to sign up.
I'll just say as an aside, I have heard over and over again, out in the communities, that hearing about it from the government is very different than hearing about it from community leaders that they trust. They trust you in a way that is different from how they may trust all of us in government, so I'd encourage you to get out there.
In closing, I'll just note this is a historic moment and I think many of you feel it too. Generations before us brought electricity and water to rural America. They built the Interstate Highway System. They did big things. This is our generation’s big infrastructure moment. This is our opportunity to connect everyone in America to the tools that they need to thrive in the modern digital economy. It's going to take a lot of work. It's going to take years to do it. And we need everyone to do their part. That's why I'm so glad to be here with you. Thank you for your partnership, and I look forward to working with all of you to make this dream of the internet for all a reality at last. Thank you.