by Barbara Lach

$9.25 can buy two ventis at Starbucks—or one fifth of an Internet connection at home. But the 64 million Americans who cannot afford broadband most likely won’t be buying either.

With a recent proposal to offer low-income families a monthly subsidy for broadband access, the Federal Communications Commission has made a coffee-cup step toward bridging what has become the persistent digital divide. The $9.25 monthly subsidy that modernized federal Lifeline program offers, however, does not go far enough to make a meaningful difference for millions of disconnected Americans.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler

In a March 8 blog post, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn announced a new federal monthly subsidy for qualified households in the amount of $9.25 to help pay for broadband access for those who “live on the wrong side of the digital divide” [“Wrong” I am sure does not imply a fault of their own; author’s note] Modernizing the $1.7 billion FCC Lifeline program, which was initially established in 1985 to ensure low-income Americans have access to basic phone services so they may seek employment, medical help and rise out of poverty, is a much needed step in the right direction—albeit two lattes’ worth. The new plan was approved Mach 31 by commissioners’ vote 3:2.

“We can recite statistics all we want, but we must never lose sight of the fact that what we’re really talking about is people – unemployed workers who miss out on jobs that are only listed online, students who go to fast-food restaurants to use the Wi-Fi hotspots to do homework, veterans who are unable to apply for their hard-earned benefits, seniors who can’t look up health information when they get sick,” Chairman Wheeler said. “Internet access has become a pre-requisite for full participation in our economy and our society, but nearly one in five Americans is still not benefitting from the opportunities made possible by the most powerful and pervasive platform in history.”

FCC’s Lifeline has been criticized over the years for fraud and unaccountable spending. The new ruling establishes a third-party National Eligibility Verifier to confirm subscriber eligibility and promises transparency by making the Lifeline data available, including subscriber counts by provider. FCC set the program’s budget at $2.25 billion budget, indexed to inflation. Information for low-income consumers is available at https://www.fcc.gov/general/lifeline-program-low-income-consumers.

Because most U.S. Internet providers offer basic broadband services at a price that is higher than four times the $9.25 subsidy, this new Lifeline is more of a gesture in the right direction than practical help for most low-income American families. The FCC effort seems to be designed to encourage Internet providers, such as Comcast, Time Warner Cable and AT&T, to offer services in neighborhoods from which they have been traditionally absent. The access providers, though, may refuse to shell out the remaining balance, in which case most low-income families won’t be buying the remaining 8 ventis’ worth of Internet any time soon, leaving the FCC’s Lifeline only a gesture of good latte at best.