You Shouldn’t Need to Run a $10,000 Ad to Get Quality Internet Access

This week at a congressional hearing, CWA President Chris Shelton testified on the failure of telecom companies to upgrade their networks and called on Congress to take action to expand broadband access.

"We are living in an America where if you have ten thousand dollars to spend on an ad in the Wall Street Journal, you can get quality internet access at home," Shelton said, referring to 90-year-old Aaron Epstein's successful effort to get AT&T to install high speed fiber internet service at his home in North Hollywood, Calif. "But if you’re a single mom struggling to pay the bills, your children have to sit in a McDonald’s parking lot using the free wifi to do their homework."

He urged Congress to pass an infrastructure bill that will expand broadband access and create and protect good jobs, as President Biden has laid out in his plan to build back better, and called for Congress to strengthen the Lifeline program and protect the millions of low-income consumers who rely on it by modernizing Lifeline's funding mechanism to ensure the sustainability of the program.

Watch President Shelton's testimony here.