Experts Seek More EBB Funding Data

With nearly 3.6 million households enrolled in the emergency broadband benefit, experts want the FCC to release additional data about enrollment rates and subsidy amounts to better evaluate EBB effectiveness. Others said also in interviews last week the commission should revisit the rules to require more frequent reporting from participating providers to forecast when the program may end.

The FCC recently released enrollment data by ZIP codes’ first three digits to provide a more granular outlook on enrollment. “You can’t really tell which households are eligible and which are not, so you just have to use total households” to calculate sign-up rates, said Benton Institute for Broadband & Society Senior Fellow John Horrigan (see 2107010067).

Urban areas are experiencing a higher rate of sign-ups, Horrigan said, likely because those areas “give people doing outreach fairly clear targets” compared with suburban and rural areas, but that doesn't necessarily mean metropolitan areas are also leading in enrollment rates. More than 64,000 households in the Los Angeles metro area have enrolled, but the seemingly low enrollment rate is because the area includes higher-income households, Horrigan said. Other metro areas with high enrollment rates include New York with nearly 62,000 enrollees and Atlanta with more than 56,000.

Horrigan estimated about one in 12 eligible households has enrolled, taking into account the total amount of Lifeline-eligible households. It’s difficult to capture the number of households adversely harmed by COVID-19 because that data is coming from third-party surveys and would require several assumptions, he said.

It's “very hard to evaluate” if EBB is reaching households without additional data, emailed Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Nicol Turner Lee. “It would be great to see updated numbers on monthly spending that will emphasize why the EBB should be more permanent, and how it can potentially be an update to the Lifeline program, which has been quite stagnant in its uptake.”

The FCC “could become a victim of its own success,” said TechFreedom General Counsel Jim Dunstan. If the FCC doesn't release funding data at least biweekly, “there’s not going to be a soft landing for the program,” Dunstan said: “It’s going to be a big crash at the end.” Consumers may be scared to enroll in a temporary program if it’s not clear when it will end, he said.

The FCC anticipates “additional updates to the EBB data dashboard in the near term” and is evaluating what additional information can be made publicly available, a spokesperson said Tuesday. The agency didn’t respond to questions Friday about what kind of data it's considering.

The data already released is a “good start,” said Free Press General Counsel Matt Wood, but having more aggregate data “would be welcomed.” Wood said more money "should draw more people in, but if it's brand new and this is temporary, that might discourage some people or just not get the word out to everybody who's eligible.”

Having five-digit ZIP code data and demographic information could be more helpful to evaluate EBB's effectiveness, Horrigan said, but several million more sign-ups would be needed to ensure a household’s privacy. Releasing existing data at the census block or tract level would “allow researchers to evaluate program sign-ups by demographics,” Turner Lee said, “which would be helpful for those of us interested in addressing the overlay between the digital divide and systemic inequalities.”

ISPs are seeing enrollment levels “across the board,” said WTA Senior Vice President-Government and Industry Affairs Derrick Owens. Some are seeing “really good numbers,” while others are finding the demand lower than anticipated, Owens said. “There probably will be some sort of refresh of the record on Lifeline" with whatever data the FCC ultimately collects from EBB, he said.

A key missing data point is the time frame for approving noneligible telecom carriers into EBB, Dunstan said: “A lot of really small guys," non-ETCs, are "waiting to get approved.” The FCC hasn’t indicated how long it takes for Universal Service Administrative Co. to approve these providers, Dunstan said, speculating it might be a reason behind the slower program penetration.