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Over 200 have enrolled locally in emergency broadband benefit

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reporters@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — As of the week of June 7th, just over 200 households in American Samoa have enrolled in the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB) program, administered by the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC), according to FCC public data.

The new initiative is to help families and households struggling to afford internet service during the COVID-19 pandemic. This new benefit will allow eligible households to connect via the internet to jobs, critical healthcare services, virtual classrooms, and so much more, according to a previous FCC statement reported on by Samoa News.

As of the week of June 7th, the FCC data shows that 235 households in American Samoa have enrolled in the EBB program, but the amount disbursed was not yet available. The territory’s two telecom providers, American Samoa TeleCommunications Authority and Bluesky Communications, are participant providers in the federal program.

In a national news release on Monday this week, FCC Acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced that the program has enrolled over 2.3 million households into the subsidy program initiated by Congress.  Since mid-May, households in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and American Samoa were approved to receive a discount on their monthly internet bills and have selected a participating EBB provider to receive internet service at home.

“I am thrilled to see that the great need for affordable broadband support is being met with over 2 million households enrolled in three short weeks. I’ve also said we need good data to know how the program is progressing and to inform any long-term efforts to address broadband affordability. This information is now available to the public as we always intended,” said Rosenworcel.

The federal agency has also debuted a new data dashboard for advocates, members of Congress, and the general public to track the progress of the program.  The dashboard contains information related to nationwide and state-specific enrollment figures and will report the amount of program funds disbursed once participating providers start to file claims and will be updated regularly/

For more information and to enrolled online [https://www.getemergencybroadband.org]. Households can also contact their telecom provider for more information.