Broadband Adoption Act of 2013
Have a question about what this bill does? Ask in plain English; the answer is drawn from the bill's actual text and official record, and it'll tell you when something isn't in the text rather than guess.
Broadband Adoption Act of 2013 - Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to direct the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt a final rule establishing support for broadband under the Universal Service Fund Lifeline Assistance Program to enable qualifying low-income customers residing in urban and rural areas to purchase broadband service at reduced charges by reimbursing providers who elect to participate in the program for each such customer served.
Establishes a program model under which qualifying individuals may elect to apply support from the Lifeline program to basic telephone service, voice telephony service, or broadband service, whether each service is purchased stand-alone or in a bundle.
Authorizes the FCC to determine whether state matching funds may be provided as a condition of eligibility for low-income households within such state.
Requires the program to be technology neutral to promote competition from service providers.
Requires a broadband service provider that is not an eligible telecommunications carrier to obtain FCC authorization to participate in the program.
Directs the FCC to: (1) adopt regulations to prevent duplicative Lifeline subsidies from being awarded to an individual eligible household, and (2) establish a national database to determine consumer eligibility. Limits qualifying individuals to only one Lifeline program support amount per eligible household.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology.
- Introduced in House Formatted Text PDF Formatted XML
Cite this page
U.S. Congress. (2026). H.R. 1685: Broadband Adoption Act of 2013. 113th Congress. Open America. https://openamerica.io/bill/113-HR-1685/
"H.R. 1685: Broadband Adoption Act of 2013." 113th Congress, 2026, Open America, https://openamerica.io/bill/113-HR-1685/.
H.R. 1685, 113th Cong. (2026), https://openamerica.io/bill/113-HR-1685/.
[H.R. 1685: Broadband Adoption Act of 2013](https://openamerica.io/bill/113-HR-1685/)