lifeline

No help for California in FCC’s lifeline plea deal with T-Mobile

24 November 2020 by Steve Blum
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Sprint booth mwc la 2019 22oct2019

T-Mobile will pay a $200 million fine to clear Sprint’s bad conduct off of the Federal Communication Commission’s books, but the deal doesn’t include repayment of state subsidies that the company took for low income “lifeline” customers who weren’t actually using the service. T-Mobile assumed responsibility for Sprint’s lifeline service – Assurance Mobile – when it took over Sprint earlier this year. The violations of the subsidy rules and improper collection of “tens of millions of dollars” from the FCC’s lifeline piggy bank happened before the merger but came to light while the FCC and the California Public Utilities Commission were reviewing it.… More

FCC proposes to pat its own back for a net neutrality repeal well done

13 October 2020 by Steve Blum
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In a rush to approve as much of the republican majority’s agenda as possible before next month’s election, the Federal Communications Commission published several draft decisions last week, that will presumably be approved at its next meeting, on 27 October 2020. Included in that batch is a draft of a clean-up ruling that addresses problems a federal appeals court found with its 2017 network neutrality repeal. None of the issues were considered serious enough to nullify the repeal, but the court did tell the FCC to fix them.… More

CPUC adds broadband to subsidised lifeline phone service in California, if telcos and cable cooperate

9 October 2020 by Steve Blum
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Forbes ag tech hartnell alisal demo 13jul2107

Low income Californians will be able to get free or low broadband service via the state’s lifeline program, following a unanimous vote yesterday by the California Public Utilities Commission. The plan approved by commissioners is pretty much the same as the draft that was proposed last month. The language in the final version was tightened up, but no substantive changes were made.

Subsidised lifeline broadband service has been available for some time from mobile carriers, who typically provide at no cost to the consumer.… More

Low income home broadband subsidies proposed by CPUC, but cable and telco cooperation needed

9 September 2020 by Steve Blum
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Tanimura and antle housing 13jul2016

Wireline broadband service for low income Californians will be subsidised by the state’s telephone “lifeline” program, if a draft decision released last week is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. The plan depends on California’s ability to “exercise its bulk purchasing power to secure volume discounts for participants”, rather than on pure regulatory muscle.

Qualifying households would pay a discounted rate for broadband and phone service. Current voice-only wireline lifeline service typically runs between $7 and $11 per month.… More

U.S. house democrats propose $50 monthly broadband subsidy for low income homes, AT&T and Comcast will be happy to take it

14 May 2020 by Steve Blum
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With covid–19 pandemic lockdowns continuing in most states, albeit with gradual loosening underway, democrats in the house of representatives in Washington, D.C. want to pump $5.5 billion into broadband access subsidies to ensure that people and institutions can remain connected to the online resources they will be depending on, likely for months to come. It’s one of the opening shots in the negotiations over what might be a second stimulus bill in the trillion dollar range to keep the U.S.… More

Sprint takes half billion dollar revenue hit after ending improper California, federal subsidies

5 November 2019 by Steve Blum
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Sprint booth mwc la 2019 22oct2019

Losing California and federal subsidies it took for inactive Lifeline accounts smacked Sprint hard in the third quarter of 2019. The company released financial results yesterday, reporting that its third quarter revenue dropped to $5.0 billion, compared to $5.3 billion in the second quarter, and $5.4 billion in the third quarter last year.

Cutting off, and perhaps reimbursing, the money it was collecting for 885,000 Lifeline customers nationwide – and an estimated 145,000 in California – who were no longer using the service was number one of two reasons for the slide, according to a statement released by chief financial officer Andrew Davies…

We recently notified the FCC that we had claimed monthly subsidies for serving subscribers even though these subscribers may not have met usage requirements under Sprint’s usage policy for the Lifeline program.

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Sprint took megabuck subsidies for inactive lifeline customers, federally and in California

30 September 2019 by Steve Blum
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Sprint mwca 2018

Sprint could be collecting payments from California’s broadband and telephone lifeline subsidy program for hundreds of thousands of inactive accounts. A Federal Communications Commission press release accuses Sprint of taking “tens of millions of dollars” for 885,000 federally subsidised customers who weren’t using the service anymore. That represents 30% of Sprint’s national lifeline customer base, says the FCC.

Sprint is the 500 pound gorilla of the California Public Utilities Commission’s lifeline program, which supplements the $9.25 monthly federal subsidy with up to $15 per month.… More

Dumb reasons don't make mobile lifeline plans smart

4 September 2017 by Steve Blum
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Sorry, only one per household.

Lifeline broadband and telephone subsidies can be used to buy either mobile or wireline service. But that could end. Nineteen republican members of the U.S. house of representatives signed onto a draft bill that would scrap that option.

The lifeline program run by the Federal Communications Commission is routinely slammed by republicans – including those on the FCC itself – as a swamp of fraud and abuse, with wireless options frequently singled out as particularly problematic.… More

FCC concedes broadband lifeline decisions to state regulators

30 March 2017 by Steve Blum
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Let the professionals do it.

Companies that want to offer subsidised broadband service to low income households will have to seek approval from state regulators, and not the Federal Communications Commission. That will be the result of a decision made public yesterday by FCC chair Ajit Pai. In effect, he’s conceding an appeals court challenge to the broadband lifeline program approved by the FCC in 2016 and, instead, will have the current commission – a very different beast from a year ago – rework it.… More

Mobile data lifeline can't hold its own weight

25 July 2016 by Steve Blum
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You need a thick line, not a slim thread.

Verizon is kicking heavy bandwidth users off of its unlimited mobile data plans. That begs the question of what exactly unlimited means, but that’s for another time. The justification Verizon offers, though, shows why the Federal Communications Commission’s plan to include grossly inferior mobile service in its broadband lifeline program is nonsense. As reported by Fierce Wireless, Verizon said it can’t handle the load…

“Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a very small group of customers on unlimited plans who use an extraordinary amount of data that they must move to one of the new Verizon Plans by August 31, 2016.

… More