Congress investigates telecom companies over U.S. internet aid program - The Washington Post

The heightened scrutiny centers connected the astir $17 cardinal adopted by Congress since 2020 to assistance cash-strapped families and adjacent the country’s integer divide. First called the Emergency Broadband Benefit, past rebranded past twelvemonth arsenic the Affordable Connectivity Program, the inaugural pays stipends straight to telecom providers to little qualified Americans’ monthly bills, sometimes to zero.

The assistance has helped much than 14 cardinal households chopped costs, though the sign-ups bespeak astir a 4th of the astir 49 cardinal households eligible for help. The spread is owed successful portion to telecom providers, whose tactics are laid bare successful thousands of user complaints — and reams of different information — that The Post obtained nether the Freedom of Information Act.

Responding to those findings, Pallone wrote to 13 companies Wednesday, noting helium is “deeply concerned” that immoderate “may not beryllium adhering to the requirements of the program.” The president added that the allegations bespeak “actions that are present explicitly prohibited by Congress and the FCC.”

And Pallone demanded details astir the net providers’ medication of the broadband benefits. The questions included the fig of radical they serve, the mode they marketplace their net offerings and the complaints they person received from aggrieved customers. Pallone besides inquired astir their billing practices and their oversight mechanisms, including the grade to which agents are paid commissions for sales.

“The occurrence of the existent program, ACP, is important to making advancement successful our shared extremity of connecting each Americans,” wrote Pallone, requesting answers by Nov. 9.

Pallone’s missive reflected a broader, ongoing situation facing the U.S. authorities arsenic it seeks to support adjacent ticker implicit the much than $5 trillion successful exigency spending adopted since the commencement of the pandemic. The wealth helped rescue the system from free-fall, but it has remained hard to way and taxable to waste, fraud and abuse, The Post has revealed successful The Covid Money Trail, a year-long series. That includes a wide array of misspending that has since drawn the involvement of national inspectors general.

The complaints astir authorities net subsidies day to the program’s earliest days, erstwhile it was known arsenic the Emergency Broadband Benefit. Many consumers told the FCC opening successful aboriginal 2021 that telecom giants including AT&T, Charter and Verizon had forced them to marque undesirable choices — agreeing to terms hikes, velocity cuts oregon different program changes if they wanted to use the national payment to their bills.

In response, AT&T attributed immoderate of the issues to “technical challenges” made worse by the velocity astatine which Washington implemented the payment program. Charter said it had been wide with customers and achieved “significant participation,” portion Verizon acknowledged it changed its policies amid a nationalist backlash.

Meanwhile, the broadband benefits rapidly became a root of imaginable fraud, The Post found. The telecom giants’ contention to motion up subscribers — connected apical of long-known glitches successful the government’s exertion strategy — opened the doorway for perchance tens of thousands of radical to get national assistance they did not suffice to receive.

Much of the occupation acrophobic astir 200,000 families who received monthly net benefits aft claiming they had a kid attending a high-poverty school. More than 143,000 of those beneficiaries signed up for the stipends connected behalf of a pupil whose sanction they ne'er supplied, according to information obtained by The Post. Nearly 20,000 applicants — immoderate included children’s names, immoderate did not — besides named a schoolhouse 50 miles oregon much distant from their location address.

Some of the top fraud risks progressive the low-cost bearer Boost Mobile, owned by Dish, which signed up 11,000 families based connected students attending far-flung schools — including much than 400 students who lived thousands of miles away. Presented with The Post’s findings, a spokesperson for Dish said Boost Mobile services were offered done “independent third-party retail outlets.” He added that the institution has worked to amended its processes on with the FCC.

The telecom bureau soon moved to tighten eligibility, arsenic the FCC’s inspector wide issued a bid of crisp alerts astir the risks of waste, fraud and abuse. On Capitol Hill, meanwhile, Democrats and Republicans looked to refashion their broadband benefits arsenic a $14 cardinal effort called the Affordable Connectivity Program. The changes, overseen by the Biden administration, helped clamp down connected maltreatment and spurred much enrollment. But they inactive opened the doorway for caller headaches that consumers soon raised with the FCC.

In galore cases, lesser-known low-cost carriers came to spot the wealth arsenic a concern accidental — and immoderate adopted questionable selling tactics to motion up caller subscribers. A discount marque owned by T-Mobile, called Assurance Wireless, repeatedly signed up families for national benefits successful ways that aboriginal led those customers to kick to the FCC, according to documents obtained by The Post. In immoderate cases, they told the agency, the company’s tactics had the effect of switching a consumer’s payment distant from different supplier wherever they had hoped to use the monthly discount, leaving them connected the hook for a bill.

In a statement, Tara Darrow, a spokeswoman for Assurance and its genitor company, T-Mobile, said determination is “no lawsuit wherever a lawsuit could beryllium enrolled successful these programs without their permission.”

On Wednesday, Pallone acknowledged that “many issues person been resolved” since the U.S. authorities began offering broadband benefits astatine the tallness of the pandemic. He besides praised telecom companies for participating successful a programme that is voluntary successful nature. But helium pledged beardown oversight inactive to come, stressing helium would marque definite they “comply with the safeguards and user extortion standards.”