In 2013, the Federal Communications Commission facilitated 14 experimental broadband Lifeline projects proposed by wireline and wireless broadband providers around the country. The projects tested consumer responses to a range of issues, including preferences for speed, the effects of different levels and types of discounts, and the effectiveness of different methods of outreach. In order to focus on the unconnected, participants could not have subscribed to broadband service within the past 60 days. In practice, the vast majority of them had never had broadband.
Attachments
Learning from the FCCs Lifeline Broadband Pilot Projects
Scott Wallsten is President and Senior Fellow at the Technology Policy Institute and also a senior fellow at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. He is an economist with expertise in industrial organization and public policy, and his research focuses on competition, regulation, telecommunications, the economics of digitization, and technology policy. He was the economics director for the FCC's National Broadband Plan and has been a lecturer in Stanford University’s public policy program, director of communications policy studies and senior fellow at the Progress & Freedom Foundation, a senior fellow at the AEI – Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies and a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, an economist at The World Bank, a scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and a staff economist at the U.S. President’s Council of Economic Advisers. He holds a PhD in economics from Stanford University.
