By Kelly Hill

More than 11 million American households are participating in the federal broadband subsidy programme that was established during the pandemic and solidified under the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel told Congress last week.

The programme was originally established as the Emergency Broadband Benefit as part of COVID-19 relief programmes, aiming to connect the unconnected during a time when internet access abruptly became critical for school and work. It provides monthly discounts on internet service, and also a one-time discount for a computer or tablet. The programme received expanded funding of US$14.2 billion and was renamed the Affordable Connectivity Programme through the Infrastructure and Jobs Act.

Rosenworcel, in testimony before a House oversight committee, said that more than 11 million households across the country are participating in the programme and that the FCC is working to expand its outreach, including efforts by Commissioner Geoffrey Starks to develop an initiative to connect people in federal housing.

The broadband subsidy program was one of three major FCC programmes designed to address connectivity gaps that were brought into stark relief by the pandemic. The other two were the Emergency Connectivity Fund for schools and libraries, which Rosenworcel said put a “meaningful dent” in the “homework gap” between students who do and don’t have internet access at home to complete school work. COVID relief funding provided US$7.17 billion to subsidize internet service and device purchases by schools and libraries, and Rosenworcel reported that it has supported more than 12 million students across the country.

In addition, the FCC operated a telehealth programme funded by Congress that awarded nearly US$450 million in funding to expand telemedicine access and services during the pandemic.

In separate testimony, Republican Commissioner Nathan Simington reiterated his support for the FCC to “boldly re-examine the status quo on interference protection.” The FCC has traditionally regulated transmission, as opposed to reception, but Simington has publicly supported the agency examining whether it should also establish some baseline expectations on receiver performance — even if only to nudge industry toward doing so itself.

He told the House committee that the FCC should specifically and scientifically define what “interference” is, and an interference limit policy. “Increased signal strength from transmitters can provide improved reception, but increasing power levels requires receivers in adjacent bands to be able to reject unwanted signals outside their frequencies,” he added. “We can look for efficiencies in a band-by-band fashion, where spectrum is densest, or where protection of high value services is of greatest importance.

“Today, we have dense colocation of wireless edge devices, and it’s getting denser fast,” Simington continued, adding, “We are going to switch on a billion new wireless devices over the next decade. Those devices are operating in dense spectrum neighborhoods, so the rules of the road on interference protection have to be crystal clear. … Creating scientific standards for what constitutes harmful interference will further protect users of spectrum from harmful interference.”