Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Broadband Program with Cletis Earle

Lauren Cameron, CHIME’s Public Policy Coordinator, interviewed Cletis Earle, CIO of Penn State Health, member of CHIME’s Public Policy Steering Committee, and former board chair, on a new federal program making broadband more accessible to underserved Americans.

Today we will be discussing the Affordable Connectivity Program, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) benefits program created to help households afford the staple broadband they need for school, work, health care, and more.

This benefit provides up to $30 per month towards internet service for eligible households and up to $75 per month for households on qualifying tribal lands. In addition, eligible households may qualify for a one-time discount of up to $100 to purchase a laptop, desktop, or tablet from participating providers if they contribute more than $10 and less than $50 towards the purchase price.

We also have a one-page cheat on the program with resource links, program eligibility, and where to apply for the program. So first, Cletis, thank you for taking the time to join us and answer a few questions about this important new program.

Earle: Thanks for having me, Lauren. Appreciate it. And looking forward to a great conversation.

Sounds good. So first, I’d like to ask how you first heard about the Affordable Connectivity Program?

Earle: Yeah, that’s a great question. I first heard about the program through some just reviewing. I’m taking a class and some studies, and I was able to come across this program by looking into the infrastructure bill that was passed in November of 2021, so knowing that there was hundreds of billions of dollars, I believe a little over a billion to a trillion dollars, I was really trying to figure out what were the elements associated to technology and digging deeper. So I was able to understand some of the elements from the infrastructure bill and what was put into law. But when we introduced it to CHIME, I actually got to learn even more by you all putting together the cheat sheet. So being able to refer to the exact elements of the bill was extremely helpful from what CHIME was able to put together. Particularly you, so thank you to you and Mari.

I’m glad that the cheat sheet was helpful.

Earle: It was, thank you.

No problem. So looking towards trends in the health and public health sector and the pandemic, increasing the need and push for telemedicine access, what challenges have you noticed, particularly in access and equity?

Earle: Yeah, so there’s a few pieces around equity that I think it’s extremely relevant in how this program is going to help. As an example, we’ve noticed when the pandemic first came about, and we went into lockdown period, we did see that there was a significant amount of students that did not have access to the internet or technology. The teachers called it, a great concern, as there were potentially millions of students that have lost time in as far as training and education. So there is one element there. And then there was another component, the healthcare component, that it did not provide by not having internet. And as the various services were shut down during the pandemic, the health care element went to virtual care. We basically started to see patients virtually, all that’s good for those who have access to the internet and technology, but for those who don’t have access to the internet and technology, there were severe gaps. And we know that where there’s the potential concerns on mammograms and others, there is a significant population of patients that may now have some challenges because they were not able to be seen or cared for during that time—major concerns around cancer care and other treatment areas during the pandemic. There’s a lot of catch-up so I think that putting technology in place, this is the new social determinant. Technology and access to data and information will be the new social determinant to look out for to help.

Right, that’s a good point that the pandemic and the public health emergency, really just put a magnifying glass to some of the divides that were underlying in terms of access and care.

Earle: The great digital divide. You’re absolutely right, exactly.

How do you think this program in partnership with some of the nation’s largest Internet providers like XFINITY and spectrum, etc, will help to close that broadband access gap? Or how could we go further? And how could policy address as we were talking about the digital divide?

Earle: Yes. For those who are fortunate to be in a region that has these major carriers and service providers, it would be a definite advantage for those that are in the inequity component. They’ll have access and it’s targeting specific populations, including the Native American population. When there is a potential need, the companies are subsidizing the internet service package as well, so that the dollars that are going to be provided from the federal government will be able to cover internet as a whole. It’s a great combination of public-private partnership, to allow for a price point that is acceptable, so that broadband is accessible for these populations. And it’s very good to see that on the component of technology—the price point drop of PCs, or tablets, or smartphones, with the Chromebooks that are out there—we’re really talking about a much lower price point if you’re particularly looking at cloud service solutions that are out there and made accessible. I do believe it’s going to go a long way, particularly for access, but I do think there’s more to come, particularly when you’re dealing with productivity components and productivity tools. I think there’s a huge benefit to the population in the future. And then having access to that data is going to be much more relevant in the very near future once people start using it.

That’s a great point. And we still have a long way to go. But this is a great start. And not only getting people connected and having that connectivity. Thank you again, Cletis, for your time and help in breaking down this program and getting the word out about this great resource.

Earle: I’m just excited that we’re here and the efforts to really promote this. I look at this from communities that we serve—many people don’t know of these programs that are out there and being able to tap in so I’m hoping that our effort to get it out to the public to let them know that this is available. For the last 20 years there’s been a significant amount of programs around getting Internet access to diverse communities and there has been significant challenges of actually accomplishing it. This time, this is something that’s relatively simple. It’s not unnecessary, a hurdle that has been put up in front of us so I do believe that we have to deal with it now. For the communities that are not partnered with those carriers, there’s still some work to be done. There’s other communities that we’re going to have to target and continue to work on so that we can push this information out, and be able to get them to have that kind of access. So really, truly bridging the digital divide.