Senate Spectrum Hearing Can Extend Support for 23 Million Households under Expiring Affordable Connectivity Program

Ahead of tomorrow’s Senate Commerce Committee’s “Spectrum and National Security” hearing at 10 a.m. EDT, the Open Technology Institute (OTI), a New America program fostering equitable access to digital technology and its benefits, issued the following statement from Michael Calabrese, Director of the Wireless Future program at OTI:

The Senate Commerce Committee has a unique opportunity to restore the FCC’s spectrum auction authority and earmark the more than $10 billion this will generate to prevent 23 million low-income American households from losing the affordable broadband internet service they now receive under the expiring Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).

The ACP, adopted as part of the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, will run out of money after April without new funding. Revenue generated from auctions of the public airwaves is the most appropriate way to help low-income Americans stay connected because, ultimately, the cost of spectrum is passed along to all of us when we buy mobile smartphone service.

A bill to restore the FCC’s lapsed auction authority is good policy and a year overdue. A ‘clean’ extension of authority will allow the FCC to quickly auction large bands of spectrum, boosting the U.S. wireless ecosystem and giving the military and other federal spectrum holders time to study what additional spectrum can be made available for private sector use through either sharing or clearing.