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Millions could lose cheap phone service under FCC's overhaul of Lifeline
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, appointed to the post by President Donald Trump, wants to remove a majority of wireless providers that participate in the Lifeline program in an attempt to eliminate "waste, fraud, and abuse." If such a move were made, the "chaos would be magnificent," said David Dorwart, the chairman of the National Lifeline Association (NaLA), a trade organization that represents Lifeline businesses.
Roughly 10.7 million Americans receive text, voice, and data under the program, and 70 percent would have to look for a new service provider under the proposal, according to NaLA, if an affordable option is even available. The program cost about $1.3 billion dollars in 2017, and the funding comes from the Universal Service Fund, which is collected from phone subscribers by service providers.
[...] The proposal, introduced by the commission in November of 2017, would limit the Lifeline program to providers that own their networks. This would effectively eliminate "resellers," or providers who instead lease space on a network. Such providers service more than 70 percent of Lifeline participants. The program has been criticized in the past for fraud. It has been the subject of several reports from the Government Accountability Office, which highlighted "significant risks" for abuse.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday September 04 2018, @09:04PM (2 children)
Maybe Verizon is in favor of it, pretends to be against it, gets their sock puppet to push for it. Competitors think that if Verizon is in favor of this (but in reality are against it) then they need to be against it (thus helping Verizon).
A better question is why would any telecom company would want millions of poor people to have phone service, or a lifeline if the telecom is not allowed to harvest their vital organs in exchange.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Wednesday September 05 2018, @02:56AM
Bigger market.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 05 2018, @07:59AM
Tracking, data, service cost is way inflated.