New Mexico Dems Pass An Affordable Broadband Law In 25 Days

from the teach-a-man-to-fish dept

In late 2024, Trump Republicans killed a very popular program that provided low-income Americans $30 off of their monthly broadband bill. The FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) was, unsurprisingly, very popular, with more than 23 million Americans benefiting at its peak.

At the time, the GOP claimed they were simply looking to save money. The real reason the program was killed, of course, was that the ACP was popular with their constituents (the majority of ACP participants were in red states) and they didn’t want Dems to take credit during an election season.

A follow up report by The Brattle Group actually found that the $7-$8 billion annual taxpayer cost of the program generated between $28.9 and $29.5 billion in savings thanks to expanded access to affordable internet, remote work opportunities, online education tools, and remote telehealth services. The study also found the ACP generated $3.7 billion in increased annual earnings for students due to expanded remote education opportunities, and $2.1 to $4.3 billion in annual wage gains from expanded labor force participation.

In other words: the program more than paid for itself via downstream benefits (something DOGE dudebros and other Trump cultists can’t or won’t think deeply about).

With the feds completely apathetic to issues like affordability (despite a lot of empty rhetoric to the contrary), it’s falling to states to fill the void. Enter states like New Mexico, which just passed the first statewide replacement for the ACP. It provides every low-income New Mexico resident with cheaper broadband access. And from drafting to passage it took all of 25 days:

“Senate Bill 152 – first filed on January 26 of this year by State Sen. Michael Padilla, (D) Majority Whip – will update the state’s Rural Telecommunications Act and empower the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission (PRC) to offer up to $30/month for qualified households to pay for Internet service.

The broadband bill, known as the Low-Income Telecommunications Assistance Program (LITAP), passed through the formal legislative session in high-speed fashion. It was first introduced at the end of January, passed by the House, and then the Senate by a 38-0 margin last Thursday (Feb. 12), making its way to the governor’s desk to be signed into law today. That’s a 25-day marathon from legislative start-to-finish.”

The program, which goes live this July, will cost around $10 million the first year, and then $42 million each year after that. It won’t be taxpayer funded; instead it’s funded by the state universal service fund (SRUSF) program (a small $1.50 fee on existing telecom services).

While myopic types will complain, I’ll repeat that the data we have on programs like this clearly show immense downstream cost savings thanks to lower income folks having access to employment, health care, education, and other remote opportunities. You’re paying a little up front to avoid paying a lot more down the road for a society that doesn’t function all that well.

That you might spend money up front to avoid significant costs (both financial and cultural) downstream is just a bridge too far for Elon Musk type hustlebros and assorted big thinkers, who think government should exist exclusively to slather our biggest telecom monopolies with unaccountable subsidies in exchange for taxpayer-funded broadband networks always mysteriously left half completed.

All of that said, I will note that you wouldn’t need programs like this (or you’d at least pay less for them) if you had more competition in the broadband sector. And you can create more competition in the U.S. broadband sector by taking aim at the giant regional monopolies that have bribed state and federal lawmakers into feckless compliance for forty-odd years, resulting in high prices, spotty access, and abysmal customer service.

Instead, we tend to pay money to these entrenched monopolies to temporarily lower broadband prices that wouldn’t be so high in the first place if we had lawmakers capable of standing up to monopoly power. That can often come in the form of embracing cooperatives, city-owned utilities, or municipal open access fiber projects in areas these giants have long refused to adequately serve.

An ideal, functioning government would probably shore up antitrust reform and crack down on telecom monopoly power, embolden community alternatives, and establish programs that benefit the poor to help society better manage downstream costs and harms. But America, clearly now too corrupt to function in the public interest, simply can’t see that far out beyond its campaign contribution skis.

Filed Under: ACP, affordability, antitrust, broadband, fiber, high speed internet, low income, monopoly, new mexico, telecom