CommLawBlog: FCC Overhauls Lifeline Program

The federal Lifeline program – a program overseen by the Federal Communications Commission and originally designed to provide subsidized phone service to low-income households – has never been a model of efficiency or consistency. Now the FCC has taken dramatic steps to overhaul the program. The Commission has decided to: open the Lifeline program to many more carriers; simplify the certification process; reduce the burdens and risks on participating carriers; and reduce the fraud and abuse which has plagued the system from the beginning. The only thing it didn’t do was to raise the subsidy that is paid per participating subscriber. One example of the inefficiencies riddling the Lifeline program: The process for certifying Eligible Telecommunications Carriers (ETCs) to participate. The Universal Service Fund (USF) statute contemplates that states will handle the ETC certification process in the first instance; only when the states fail to act or disclaim any jurisdiction to act is the FCC allowed to step in. This has left a patchwork of regulatory regimes with a handful of states being subject to FCC certification and the other states employing widely varying certification procedures, some of which involve hearings before state PUCs, in order to get an ETC certification. The new program adopted by the FCC changes the ETC designation process – but that’s only one of a raft of major shifts in the Commission’s approach to Lifeline. Here are some of the highlights:

• Broadband defined as a telecommunications service.
• Broadband rather than voice service preferred.
• Minimum service levels.
• One-to-a-household rule retained.
• A single verifying source for eligibility and payment is established.
• FCC takes over the designation process.
• Service requirements.
• Budget cap.