How Many ACP Providers Were there in America; 1,600 or 3–5? And Why is the FCC’s Data Covering it Up?

This FCC chart showed the ACP ISP provider revenues for the Top wireline, cable, broadband/internet, and wireless companies as of February 2023. But the FCC neglected to detail that on the wireless side, almost all of the companies are reselling one of 3 wireless networks: AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon

Part I: The Affordability Connectivity Program gave low income families a $30 discount, but the average household had to spend an additional $46 per month. This is because America is almost the most expensive wireless and wireline broadband ISPs in the world, especially against European Union (EU) country prices. Where’s the calls for investigations?

Part 2: Collusion of the Providers and the Negligence of FCC Equals Exorbitant Prices for All U.S. Communications Services. America does not have robust competition; almost all of the Top ISPs resell only 3 wireless providers. While the phone and cable companies have wireline broadband, for the most part there is no serious direct competition. Recent research shows proves that overseas markets that have competition are paying a fraction of the US prices and proves that regulatory capture of the FCC is harming the America and helped to create the Digital Divide.

This is Part 3:

How Many Top ACP Providers Were there in America; 1,600 or 3–5?

This started as a short summary examining one question — What is the total number of wireline and wireless providers that offered the Affordable Connectivity Program “ACP”, broadband service that was designed to give low income families a broadband connection? The ACP discount was $30 and it ended in June 2024.

But what we found: The answer to the question has been obscured; the FCC is covering up and manipulating the data and thus biasing basic facts.

Primary Facts: This IRREGULATORS Research Memo highlights:

• The FCC claims there are 1,600 separate entities that offered ACP services. This is pure statistical rubbish.
• America has only 3 primary wireless networks: AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, but they are not equal in delivery and performance.
• The top ACP providers are almost all reselling one of these 3 carriers. They are known as “MVNOs”; the FCC made no mention of this.
• AT&T, the holding company, has over 90+ listings alone of different subsidiaries and partners and each holding company is doing the same thing. Tracfone is owned by Verizon, for example.
• Worse, the largest cable companies, Comcast, Charter-Spectrum and Cox are all reselling Verizon Wireless, under their own brand names.
• Moreover, the wireline cable companies got the bulk of the ‘fixed’ broadband customers.

The FCC claims that this presentation is ‘transparent’, but instead the data covers over basic problems or leaves out critical material facts.

The Details:

1) Most of the money ended up being given to those who helped to create the Divide.

Alongside the wireless services, the cable companies were able to get government subsidies, including the ACP funding. As we point out in Part 1, the cable companies et al were able to charge retail prices that even included made-up, Junk fees. And in the end, the majority of customers ended up paying an additional $46 a month, besides the $30 ACP benefit.

The FCC reported that approximately 1,600 internet service providers was designed to sound like there is competition and lots of providers, but the data presented fails to properly examine 3 primary facts.

Example: The wireline/cable ISPs, also received massive financial rewards from the ACP program.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Charter was able to “Hoover up” over $3 billion of the $14.2 billion

The Wall Street Journal’s update of the ACP says it all : (PAYWALL)

“How One Company Hoovered Up $3 Billion in Broadband Subsidies Charter received far more of funding for low-income Americans to get internet service than any other company.”

We do not know the percentage of ACP subscribers of Charter that are wireline-cable or wireless, but we assume most of their funds were wireline because it makes the company more profits and because the retail rates are higher for wireline.

Also, these different details on the ACP provider reenues are from different time periods and different sources. The first chart was from 2023 and 2024.

According to Fierce Wireless, at the end of 2023,

“The top 10 ACP providers by funding received at that time were Charter Communications (a hair under $910 million), Q Link Wireless ($288.2 million), Tracfone Wireless (which is now owned by Verizon, with $250.2 million), Comcast ($232.4 million), T-Mobile ($208 million), AT&T ($188.4), Excess Telecom ($181.8 million)”

And it gets screwier when you peel away the fact that most of these other companies including Excess Telecom, Q link Wireless, or Tracfone or others, including Cricket, are all reselling one of the big 3 wireless networks of AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile.

2) Every large holding company also had subsidiaries and partners listed. AT&T has over 90 different subsidiaries, partners, and even legacy companies that were supposed to have been remained 30 years ago.

FULL CHART: AT&T’s 90+ ACP recipients. at the end of this story.

Thus, there is no accounting of what each holding company has and how much money went to the holding company.

3) We found the ACP Provider ties to these 3 companies: Referencing the opening chart, which was created by the FCC in 2023, we uncovered that most of the top wireless providers are “MVNO”s, Mobile Virtual Network Operator.

Do the search yourself: We found these ties to each of the ACP providers by querying the question “Who is the network provider for (name of company)?”, or use the “name of company’ and the term “MVNO”.

Note: The MVNO provider can have other brand names it uses to sell services, thus complicating the total amount of MVNOs as some of these providers may be listed in the 1,600 total.

Google supplied these snippets.

• “Excess Telecom requests designation as a California Lifeline Provider to provide prepaid wireless service to qualifying households, where its underlying carrier, Sprint PCS provides wireless service in the state of California. June 7, 2018 (Sprint was bought by T-Mobile)
• “Q Link Wireless uses the T-Mobile network and gives its customers access to a vast 4G LTE network and the largest 5G network.” May 31, 2023”
• “Q Link is a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) that offers the Commission’s Lifeline assistance program to qualifying wireless subscribers, as well as prepaid wireless service for both Lifeline and non-Lifeline subscribers. Hello Mobile, through its online presence, is also a common carrier that provides nationwide wireless service to consumers as an MVNO. Q Link and Hello Mobile are wholly owned by Florida-based Quadrant Holdings LLC, which in turn is wholly owned by Quadrant’s Chief Executive Officer, Issa Asad. The NAL applies to Hello Mobile and Quadrant as well, though it’s combining them as one party in this case.” FCC inquiry, 2022.
• “Global Communications of America offers its California Lifeline customers the ability to send and receive voice-grade calls within a nationwide coverage area, currently using the Sprint, Verizon or T-Mobile wireless networks.
• “TruConnect, formally known as TruConnect Mobile, is an American mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that sells mobile hotspots and smartphones, 3G/4G LTE mobile data plans and prepaid cell phone talk & text plans on both T-Mobile and Verizon networks.”
• Boost Mobile is a MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) owned by Dish Wireless, Dish Wireless is a subsidiary of Dish Network the famous TV provider.. And Boost doesn’t just use Dish’s towers, they also use AT&T and T-Mobile’s towers as well. With this combination of coverage.
• Sage Telecom, “TruConnect uses either Verizon’s and/or T-Mobile’s network depending on location. TruConnect was founded by Matthew Johnson and Nathan Johnson and provides wireless, residential and small business telecommunication services under the Sage Telecom, Telscape Communications and TruConnect Mobile brands.
• “AirVoice Wireless is an American wireless service provider owned by HTH Communications. The privately held Houston based company uses the AT&T and T-Mobile network to deliver low-cost monthly service”
• “Comcast’s powerful network of Wi-Fi hotspots combined with our MVNO agreement with Verizon have allowed us to deliver an exceptional wireless experience.” Source Comcast.
• Cox Mobile uses the Verizon cell network, so these plans come with excellent coverage throughout the U.S. The one catch is that you must have Cox Internet to be eligible for Cox Mobile — TV-only customers don’t make the cut. Other than that, all Cox Internet customers are eligible for Cox mobile. June 11, 2024
• Spectrum: What network does Spectrum Mobile use? Spectrum Mobile uses Verizon’s nationwide 4G LTE and 5G networks and Spectrum’s own Wi-Fi access points to offer great coverage and a reliable signal. June 4, 2024

Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T, therefore, are reselling their service to these other companies that market the ACP program and it therefore controls the wholesale prices — and thus what the companies will charge for the retail must take these fundamental costs into the end user costs. And this can include the made up, “Cost Recovery” fee and others that are then passed through.

How Much Money are we talking about that goes back to the network carrier?

“Verizon’s MVNO on average, 9GB/month MNO data usage per MVNO subscriber when data costs $1/GB. For context, last year, the financial analysts at Wells Fargo estimated that Charter and Comcast pay their host MNO Verizon $12-$13/line/month,” Dec 27, 2023

In short, the FCC provides zero details about each company and the actual costs customers pay in toto or a primary fact: in the end, America just gave a very few, very wealthy companies more money who failed to properly upgrade and maintain their networks and created the Divide, but also, the select few have been able to take over the telecom agencies and agendas throughout the US. And this transparent data shows just how the FCC is helping to cover-up all of the details.

Part 4: The Underbelly of Deceptive Acts: The wireless networks were illegally funded by the state telecommunications public utilities and charged to customers. Exposing that there are only 3 underlying wireless networks is only part of the story. As we previously documented, Verizon and AT&T were able to use their state telecommunications public utility budgets to build our their wireless networks as well as charge wired phone customers for this. In every Verizon and AT&T state, the companies had obligations to build out their wireline networks for fiber to the home as part of the state utility infrastructure — Instead, the companies diverted these billions per state to build out their wireless networks.

Conclusion: Do the Math; the Number of ACP Providers Is Impossible. The FCC’s Data Needs Congressional Investigations.

AT&T has over 90+ Listings for ACP — We leave you with a chart of the 93 different subsidiaries and partners listed in the ACP provider information. However, it does not highlight the MVNO partners — which would show that just a few companies control the wireless markets — including the wholesale pricing.