How to get $30 per month off your internet bill in NYC

4 min readNov 29, 2022

If you have a kid who is in a NYC public school

Update (March 19, 2024):

Looks like Congress did not authorize an extension of the Affordable Connectivity Program ACP so it will be ending in April :( ugh

TL;DR

I got my $75/mo internet bill down to $25/mo with two pretty simple things.

First, use Billshark to negotiate a discount on your behalf. They’re always able to do amazing things.

Second, get your “Affordable Connectivity Program” $30/mo discount applied by doing these 3 steps:

Go to https://nv.fcc.gov/lifeline > Fill out forms (select “child in public school” and “NYC CHANCELOR’S OFFICE”) and get an Application ID
Find your internet provider’s ACP form (try googling it). For Spectrum it is https://www.spectrum.net/support/forms/affordable_connectivity_program. Fill this out and use the Application ID (aka National Verifier ID) and submit
Get an email confirmation and hopefully see future bills be $30 cheaper.

Longer version

In July 2022, Mayor Adams announced the Affordable Connectivity Program and said that all NYC public school families qualified for $30 per month off their internet bill.

“If your child is in a public school…” means a LOT of families in NYC qualify instantly. But it’s a few steps to actually get this discount.

Before you start

You should immediately use Billshark — a service which will call your internet provider and attempt to negotiate your bill down on your behalf. You only pay if they are able to do this successfully. When I started this in Sept 2022, our Spectrum bill had just increased from $65 to $75/mo. Billshark secured a $25/mo discount for the next 12 months, followed by a $15/mo discount for the next 12 months. (PS I have no association with Billshark — I just love what they do and have used them for 7 years.)

Billshark is showing the total over 2 years but it actually breaks down to a $25/mo discount for 12 months followed by a $15/mo discount for 12 months.

Steps to get the $30/mo ACP discount

Go to: https://nv.fcc.gov/lifeline; Click NY and Get started & fill out the form.

When it says **Do you qualify for Lifeline or the Affordable Connectivity Benefit through your child or a dependent?** select *your child*

Next:

Then fill out the form for the child in public school
Create an account & fill out the form

When you get to the question: **Are you or someone in your household in any of these?** Select **Free and reduced lunch** > **USDA Community Eligibility Provision School**

Next, select NY and then NYC CHANCELOR’S OFFICE
Then you should be able to find your public school in the massive dropdown list (it could take a few seconds to load between these steps).
When they ask to upload the document, your child’s most recent report card is sufficient. (It can be 2021 as well). Upload and submit.
I received an email within 30 mins saying I qualified! In it you’ll get your “Application ID” which you’ll need in the next step.

This is also referred to as your National ID when you fill out the application.

On October 3, I got this email confirming that Spectrum had approved my ACP application!

So did it really work?

I don’t trust any of this so I wanted to wait and see the $30 in my bill before saying this worked. And yes! It looks like Spectrum applied the “adjustment” to my bill. There was some wonky stuff because of the other promotional discounts that Billshark got me. But you can see the adjustment here: