FCC Politely Tells ISPs To Stop Abusing Covid Broadband Relief Program To Rip Off Poor People

from the yeah-maybe-stop-doing-that dept

During the COVID crisis the FCC launched the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB program), which gives lower income Americans a $50 ($75 for those in tribal lands) discount off of their broadband bill. Under the program, the government gives money to ISPs (not exactly ideal given the industry's history of fraud), which then dole out discounts to users if they qualify. But (surprise), many found that big ISPs erected cumbersome barriers to actually getting the service, or worse, actively exploited the sign up process to force struggling low-income applicants on to more expensive plans once the initial contract ended. Very on brand.

The program was recently renamed the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and made permanent via the infrastructure bill, albeit at a reduced discount rate of $30 a month (still $75 on tribal lands). And because the reboot requires new rules, the FCC has proposed tightening up the rules surrounding the program to ensure the large predatory ISPs don't exploit it to make an extra buck. More specifically, the FCC says ISPs will be required to offer the discounts across all tiers, including legacy and "grandfathered" (older, possibly cheaper plans that they may not sell any more) plans:

"We also do not think that Congress intended to exclude consumers on existing legacy or grandfathered plans from participating in the Affordable Connectivity Program. We further clarify that the requirement that legacy or grandfathered plans be eligible for reimbursement does not require that providers offer such legacy or grandfathered plans to other customers, including ACP-eligible customers, that are not already on such plans."

Basically, big ISPs were claiming that it was too technically cumbersome to provide a $30 discount to plans they no longer actively sold. Consumer groups argued this was bunk, and this was the industry's way of tap dancing around the fact they were using a program designed to help the poor as an opportunity to upsell users (like that time Verizon Wireless tried to first throttle, then upsell, firefighters battling historic wildfires). This behavior is just who they are. It's in their DNA after decades of being government-pampered regional monopolies that face little real accountability.

Note this is still just an FCC proposal, and will still require a vote of approval from an FCC that remains intentionally gridlocked at 2-2 commissioners. It also bears repeating that you wouldn't need proposals like this if Congress and U.S. policymakers were willing to target the real cause of high broadband prices across the U.S.: regional monopolization, and the state and federal corruption that protects it. But we don't, so we get these band-aid proposals big ISPs try to exploit that don't cure the underlying disease.

That's not to say this EBB/ACP program isn't helping. Over 9 million homes are enrolled in the program (a total that would be higher if ISPs didn't make the application process so cumbersome). And I've talked to several communities deploying their own gigabit fiber in the last month who say they're first targeting low-income areas as part of their broader projects, where many struggling users will see bills close to $0 per month for gigabit broadband once the discount is applied. If you're a struggling low-income American trying to survive during COVID, that's a big deal.

Filed Under: broadband, covid, discounts, ebb, emergency broadband benefit, fcc, upselling
Companies: at&t, comcast, verizon

Glitches And Greed Mar Effort To Bring COVID Relief To US Broadband Users

from the band-aids dept

As part of a recent COVID bill, the government announced that folks struggling economically during COVID would be getting some temporary help. Under the EBB (Emergency Broadband Benefit program), U.S. consumers can nab a $50 discount off their broadband bill, or $75 if you live in tribal areas. The program ends when its $3.2 billion in federal funding expires, or six months after the government has declared an end to the pandemic.

To be clear the program is bringing some helpful aid to struggling consumers, with more than 2.3 million users signed up through the voluntary program's 825 participating ISPs. But this being the busted US broadband industry overseen by fairly feckless federal leadership, the efforts aren't going without a hitch.

For one, some ISPs like Verizon exploited the program to force consumers onto even more expensive plans (not too surprising for a company that thought it would be a good idea to cap, throttle, then upsell firefighters during an historical California wildfire). Other ISPs like Charter Communications, Verizon, T-Mobile, and AT&T greatly restricted which plans qualified for the program. A few ISPs, like Charter, rejected users who didn't agree to sign up for more expensive broadband tiers once the program ends. This violated FCC rules designed to prevent bill shock among poor people, but it's not clear the agency did much about it.

Charter and Comcast also appear to be rejecting qualified applicants based on incompetence and some dumb database issues. One qualifying Comcast user, for example, was rejected four times by Comcast despite being approved for the program by the FCC:

"Over the last several weeks, Corsaro said he's reapplied and been rejected by Comcast another three times. He's followed the circuitous trails of automated FCC phone lines that all lead to dead ends and appealed to the kindness of mystified Comcast agents, who have told him again and again that he needs to finish the FCC's verification process. "I keep telling them, 'I've been approved. There's nothing to finish,'" Corsaro said."

Such complaints are common over at Reddit for both Comcast and Charter. Some of the problems stem from something as simple as "street" versus "St." not matching between FCC and ISP databases, something it took several months to notice:

"It turns out even the smallest differences in how people enter their data into the different systems can trip them up — for example, writing Elm St. in one and Elm Street in the other. "We've learned in these early days of the program that the information consumers provide to an Internet provider must exactly match, to the letter, abbreviation, and number, the information they enter in the National Verifier," Comcast spokesperson Joel Shadle said in a statement. He noted that Comcast is "continually working with the FCC and USAC to make the process easy to navigate."

Again the EBB program is certainly a useful, if temporary, band aid, providing immediate relief to millions of Americans. But the program doesn't really do much to address the regional monopolization and lack of competition that makes US broadband so mediocre and expensive in the first place. Nor does it address the fact the Trump FCC gutted its own consumer protection authority because a bunch of telecom monopolies asked them to, using completely bogus justifications (something the Biden administration seems in absolutely no rush to remedy).

Instead of fixing the real causes of US broadband dysfunction (monopolization and the state and federal corruption and regulatory capture that protects it), we seem intent on applying layers of cumbersome bureaucracies on top of the problem. It's like applying a dozen band aids upon a severe arm wound, then wondering why a bunch of plastic strips aren't truly fixing the problem.

Filed Under: broadband, covid, digital divide, discounts
Companies: at&t, charter, comcast, t-mobile, verizon

Verizon Forces Users On To More Expensive Broadband Plans Just To Get $50 Covid Subsidy

from the not-helping dept

As part of a recent COVID bill, the government recently announced that folks struggling economically during COVID would be getting some temporary help. Under the EBB (Emergency broadband Benefit program), U.S. consumers can nab a $50 discount off their broadband bill, or $75 if you live in tribal areas. The program ends when its $3.2 billion in federal funding expires, or six months after the government has declared an end to the pandemic.

It's a useful but temporary band aid, and doesn't really do much to address the regional monopolization and lack of competition that makes US broadband so perennially mediocre in the first place. Nor does it address the fact the Trump FCC gutted its own consumer protection authority because a bunch of telecom monopolies asked them to, using completely bogus justifications.

Under the program, the money is first given to your broadband provider, which is then in charge of ensuring you get the discount. But given these companies' track record of dodgy behavior, it obviously didn't take long for US telecoms to misbehave. Enter Verizon, which is using the program as an opportunity to upsell customers to more expensive plans. Users contacting Verizon to sign up were told the program didn't apply to their existing plans, and in order to get the discount they'd need to sign up for more expensive service. The Washington Post politely points out this is rather sleazy:

"Verizon elicited the most ire from readers. It requires customers to call a phone line to register for the EBB, rather than just signing up online. And when you do, Verizon told some customers the EBB can’t be used on “old” data plans, so they’d have to switch. That might be allowed by the letter of the law but certainly isn’t the spirit of the program."

Granted this is the same company that tried to upsell California firefighters to more costly plans when their data allotment ran out during an historic wildfire, so this shouldn't be too surprising. In short, knowing the subsidy was temporary, Verizon nudged users to more expensive plans so they'd see a revenue boost when the plan ended. U.S. regulators at the FCC didn't do a thing. Fortunately Verizon reversed course after the Post story began circulating online:

"On Wednesday, two days after I initially published this column, Verizon reversed course and said it would accept old plans. “We heard from some customers that they prefer to stay on the legacy plans they have,” it wrote in a blog post. “Moving forward, we will offer customers on legacy Fios plans (no longer in market today) the ability to enroll in EBB."

A few other companies have taken to using misleading websites to trick users into thinking they're enrolling in the government's official program (the real website for which is here).

Needless to say the press shouldn't always be the last line of defense against Americans getting ripped off, especially considering the increasingly tenuous financial situation the press finds itself in. You also wouldn't need a COVID discount program in the first place if the U.S. hadn't spent the last twenty years coddling regional monopolies, resulting in some of the most expensive prices in the developed world for broadband.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, covid, discounts, ebb, fcc, subsidy
Companies: verizon

AT&T Says It's Eyeing 'Wireless Discounts For Ads.' But It's Not Going To Be What You Think.

from the when-a-discount-isn't dept

AT&T is telling Reuters that it's considering offering wireless customers a "$5 to $10 reduction in their bill" in exchange for some targeted ads:

"I believe there’s a segment of our customer base where given a choice, they would take some load of advertising for a $5 or $10 reduction in their mobile bill,” Stankey said. Various companies including Amazon.com Inc, Virgin Mobile USA and Sprint’s Boost Mobile have tested advertising supported phone services since the early 2000s but they have not caught on. AT&T is hoping that better advertising targeting could revive the idea."

Doling out discounts in exchange for ads doesn't sound like a bad idea on its face. The problem is that's not quite what AT&T is planning. AT&T's goal here is to create a paradigm where people willing to be tracked and hammered with behavioral ads will pay less than those who want to have their privacy respected. In recent years, AT&T has made it very clear the company wants a paradigm whereby opting out of snoopvertising and tracking will cost you more, effectively making privacy a luxury line item (not great for a country already in a broadband affordability crisis).

AT&T already tried some variation of this idea once, and it wasn't just "discounts for ads." The company spent several years charging its broadband subscribers up to $500 more (!) per year to opt out of its snoopvertising systems. The kicker: it only opted you out of receiving behavioral ads, not out of being tracked. This was then passed off to consumers and the press as some kind of discount, when again it was simply making privacy (more accurately the illusion of privacy) only possible with an additional charge.

The other problem, of course, is that this is AT&T. A government-pampered telecom monopoly with a very long history of talking a lot about innovation, then inevitably falling flat on its face once it actually attempts it. It's also a company with a very long history of cozying up to the NSA, repeatedly violating consumer privacy, and undermining absolutely any effort whatsoever to craft even modestly serious privacy guidelines. It's been particularly opposed to any privacy guidelines that would prohibit companies charging a surcharge for privacy protection.

This is all fairly important context Reuters' scoop oddly fails to mention.

AT&T's new pivot to ad-sponsored plans, which is still a year or two out, involves hoovering up an awful lot of location, viewing, and other data from the company's wireless, broadband, phone, and TV customers. AT&T's been a little slow to capitalize on all this data due to a heavy debt load, executive dysfunction, and an investor revolt, but the scope of what they're building from a consumer tracking perspective should be fully understood:

"AT&T engineers are creating “unified customer identifiers,” Stankey said. Such technology would allow marketers to identify users across multiple devices and serve them relevant advertising. The ability to fine tune ad targeting would allow AT&T to sell ads at higher rates, he said. AT&T has invested in developing targeted advertising on its own media properties using data from its phone, TV and internet customers, but the company has been “slower in coming up the curve” on expanding its marketplace that allows advertisers to use AT&T data to target other media companies’ audiences, Stankey said."

AT&T policy folks and lobbyists have (with the GOP's help) managed to convince a big chunk of DC and tech policy Twitter that when we talk about privacy, monopolization, and the health of the internet that "big tech" is the root of all evil. As a result we're launching a slew of "antitrust inquiries" into "big tech," while effectively gutting all meaningful oversight of telecom giants that have the same ad and consumer tracking ambitions but access to as much if not more data than the biggest Silicon Valley giants. I'm sure that kind of accountability vacuum and wholly asymmetrical tech policy won't be a problem down the road though, right?

Filed Under: discounts, fees, price increase, privacy, targeted ads
Companies: at&t

NBA To Experiment With Cheap 4th Quarter Only Streaming Options

from the buzzer-beater dept

As entertainment streaming has officially become "a thing", one leading to massive change in the entertainment landscape, many eyes still turn towards the professional sports leagues. That's because live professional sports is now one of the last big bulwarks against cord-cutting. With that in mind, it's interesting to watch the major sports leagues experiment in streaming, a process that began roughly five years ago in earnest. While Major League Baseball has long led the way, the other leagues are catching up. The NBA in 2014 negotiated a new broadcast deal with Disney and TNT, one in which the league insisted that streaming options be significantly expanded. In fact, 14% or more NBA games are now nationally televised on those networks, with streaming options that do not require cable.

While that sort of deal is to be applauded, it's admittedly fairly vanilla. Put more broadcasts up on streaming services. There's nothing too experimental about that. Especially compared with a new plan the NBA is kicking around for cheap streams of the last quarter of NBA games.

Now the NBA is testing another, obvious-when-you-think-about-it idea: letting fans watch the 4th quarter of a live, in-progress game for just 99 cents.

On Twitter, Vasu Kulkarni shared a screenshot of a notification sent by the NBA app. For less than a buck, he could hop in and stream the end of a game between the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder. The Verge has reached out to NBA Digital for more specifics on how many fans are being presented with this option. I haven’t seen other screenshots or instances of it, and it’s very possible that the price could change as the NBA tries to find a sweet spot. 99 cents seems like a good one, though. Presumably the usual annoyances with these things (i.e. blackouts for local teams) also apply here.

If those annoyances are indeed still in place with this option, it would be a massive mistake. The whole value in offering these cheap streaming options for the more thrilling moments of a basketball game -- the end of it -- is the ability to draw in the more casual fan to view more broadcasts. Cutting out the local teams, particularly when what's considered a "local team" is so tortured and laughable for so many markets, undercuts that value at the kneecap. Regardless, it's good to see a league with this much sway experimenting in this way.

According to Darren Rovell of ESPN, these experiments are unlikely to end merely with end-of-game sequences.

ESPN reporter Darren Rovell predicts that the NBA could turn micro-transactions into a “significant revenue stream” for fans who want to catch the pivotal ending moments of a game. It’s a tiny, tiny fraction of the price of a full League Pass subscription, so it’s a much easier sell for casual fans who would hesitate to fork out for the big package but have no issue paying 99 cents when they get a push notification about a close, high-stakes game. Silver also mentioned the possibility of these streams being offered when a player has a chance of breaking an all-time record or reaching other notable achievements.

As the Verge post notes, this is somewhat akin to the NFL's RedZone channel, but you pay for what you want and nothing else. Hopefully the antiquated barriers come down along with this experiment and hopefully we'll see more and more creative options put forth by the leagues as well. If nothing else, it should make some large cable providers start quaking, and that's always fun.

Filed Under: discounts, innovation, sports, streaming
Companies: nba

Subscribe To A Newsapaper, Get An E-reader Free

from the make-it-up-on-volume dept

Well, this was bound to happen. Barnes & Noble is offering big discounts on its Nook e-readers to people taking out subscriptions to digital editions of magazines and newspapers:

The Nook edition of People is $9.99 a month; with a one-year subscription, customers will receive a Nook Tablet, a color device with a 7-inch display, for $199, a discount from its regular price of $249. Customers who buy a one-year subscription for the Nook edition of The New York Times for $19.99 a month, which includes access to NYTimes.com, will receive a black-and-white Nook Simple Touch free or a Nook Color for $99.

It's that last deal that's really striking: a free Nook when you subscribe for a year. The benefit is clear: once you've got your Nook, you're quite likely to buy a few other titles to read on it, and that's where the profit starts rolling in for Barnes & Noble.

It's not hard to see Amazon following suit. After all, it is allegedly selling the Kindle Fire for less than it costs to make, so it has effectively adopted the same business strategy already.

The low-end models for both Barnes & Noble and Amazon are ideal for bundling free with newspapers and magazines, especially as hardware prices continue to drop. E-readers might even be offered free with e-books, provided people commit to buying a minimum number per year - traditional book clubs would be wise to try this approach in conjunction with Amazon or Barnes & Noble before those two do it on their own. Similarly, it can only be a matter of time before the newspaper and magazine publishers start offering combined hardware and software bundles as standard in an attempt to entice people to sign up for digital subs.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: business models, discounts, ebook readers, nook
Companies: barnes & noble

Dear Comcast: The Idea When You Bundle Is That People Are Supposed To Get A Discount

from the just-saying... dept

When companies offer "bundles" of the various services they offer, part of the point is that if you're buying multiple packages together, you get some sort of "discount." It doesn't make much sense to go in the other direction, but apparently Comcast thinks it does. Reader Lucas points out that the company is currently offering the following "Digital Double Play" bundle, which consists of both the "Comcast High Speed Internet, with Powerboost" and the "Comcast Digital Starter Package" for the temporarily discounted bundle price of $69.99/month for six months (after which, the price jumps to $109.90/month). Ok. But let's look up the components separately. It appears that the basic high speed internet with Powerboost is available separately as a promotion at $19.99/month for six months, after which it becomes $42.95/month. And then there's the Comcast Digital Starter Package. That appears to be offered as a promotion for $29.99/month for six months (after which it jumps to $59.95): So... at a first pass, it looks like you could order each package separately and pay $49.99/month for six months and $102.90... or you can buy the "bundle" and pay $69.99/month for six months and then $109.90/month afterwards. What a non-bargain! Of course, if you start to look closer, it's a little bit different. The digital TV package, even though it's described as the "Digital Starter Package" also includes the on-demand library. So if we dig deeper into Comcast's options, we find that the equivalent tier isn't actually the "Digital Starter Package" but the "Digital Preferred" package. Kind of odd that you'd sell the digital "preferred" package while claiming it's the starter package -- but that appears to be what Comcast is doing. So, with this package, the six month promotion is $44.99/month and then it jumps to $76.90/month: So, now, the "unbundled" combined offering is actually $64.99... Still $5/month cheaper than the "bundle" -- and without the bundle at least you get the satisfaction of knowing you have the "preferred" package, rather than the "starter" package (oh yeah, and of paying $5 less than the suckers who bought the bundle.). But then, finally, after six months, your price will jump to $119.85 -- or $10 more expensive than the bundle. So perhaps there is some method to the madness, but Comcast sure doesn't make that very clear.

Filed Under: bundles, cable, discounts, internet, tv
Companies: comcast