By State Representative Kambrell Garvin
Guest Editorial During Covid, South Carolina realized just how integral high-speed internet is to our kids’ education. Students are back in the classroom, but four years later, more of the tools they need to complete their work are online than ever before. In response to the urgent need for reliable internet access during the pandemic, the federal government, state government, and private partners acted decisively and made game-changing investments in broadband deployment in South Carolina. Much of that came from President Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. However, there’s still a lot of work to do, as almost 200,000 households in our state are unserved or underserved by high-speed internet.
I’m dedicated to continuing the fight for additional broadband expansion in the South Carolina House and getting those remaining households online. Regrettably, the Affordable Connectivity Program, which lowered internet service costs for 1 in 5 South Carolina families, is likely being phased out. At the same time, the FCC is considering a rule that will threaten internet access for many Americans, particularly the most vulnerable.
The rule the FCC is considering would ban a practice called “bulk billing,” which allows multi-tenant communities to negotiate collectively for internet service that serves every household in the community. Currently, many HOAs, public housing communities, and university students receive internet at up to a 50 % discount by negotiating rates as a group. Ending bulk billing would eliminate these savings and make it significantly more expensive to expand internet service.
The FCC has indicated it might consider what it frames as a compromise on bulk billing by creating a rule requiring an opt-out option for households, but unfortunately this proposal would undermine the bulk billing structure to the point of infeasibility.
Without the assurance of serving all residents as guaranteed customers, multi-tenant living communities would lose leverage in negotiations with providers, who from a business standpoint wouldn’t be able to justify offering the same low prices, ultimately driving up costs for everyone in the community.
I know the stakes of this fight for digital equity because, for three years, I taught public school and lived in Walterboro, a small town about 90 minutes from Charleston. Far too often in rural communities, students are made to feel like their options are limited by the ZIP Code they were born into or the income of their household. As an educator, I did my best to expand students’ horizons and help them realize their potential. However, it’s also undeniable that students without broadband at home face a significant disadvantage that could impact their educational attainment.
From this perspective, the FCC’s proposal gives me serious pause. As a key broadband affordability program in the
ACP faces likely expiration, why would we so severely undercut bulk
billing – a practice that has been used repeatedly by local governments and housing authorities to connect those living in affordable housing?
Data from the Pew Research Center shows that 1 in 4 students in households making less than $30,000 per year sometimes can’t complete their homework for lack of internet access. That creates the “homework gap,” where motivated students can’t complete their assignments because they don’t have internet access in their home. I worry for those students, especially here in South Carolina, as well as the impact that broadband affordability barriers could have on their education. These students have the same right to an equal education that their peers do, but some of them are instantly disadvantaged the second they leave campus. Marginalized kids already have enough challenges to overcome and not being able to do their homework shouldn’t be an extra one.
The FCC has an absolutely vital role to play in expanding internet access to all South Carolinians, and over the past few years, the agency and the Biden Administration have made incredible progress in getting more Americans online. But this proposal would undercut that progress. For the sake of our students, we need to protect affordable internet access and scrap this misguided rule.