Why did that require funds in the first place? Was the government actually paying to subsidize ISPs instead of just requiring them to take less profit?
Indeed they were. It was nice for a second there, you know, to be able to have Internet access. Sigh back to lifeline and 4gb of data per month I go 😭😂
What they should've done is said "if you want to be allowed to serve the profitable customers, then you have to serve the low-income ones at a loss, too. Deal with it or fold."
This is awful. Someone should create a letter-writing campaign to implement the idea I mentioned above. No one should have only 4 GB of data ever, especially when there are hardly any marginal costs from having additional users use the service.
The government can't really force a company to accept certain customers for free without micromanaging their business. It could also be illegal .
They should just create a tax on the wealthier internet users to be able to afford to do this. The only way to do this would be to have a lowest-class free tier, a middle class discount tier, and then anyone else pays a lot tier. It would be too hard to make the wealthy verify income just for internet access. Also, middle class people who didn't need the discount wouldn't apply for it or verify income. This would have the same effect and would likely not be illegal.