How many people do you think are currently being helped by the Lifeline free government cell phone program? Go ahead. Take a guess. Five million? Seven million? Ten million?

The actual number of low-income Americans currently accessing a free government cell phone or data plan thanks via the Lifeline program is 7,000,000. Although that is a significant number, nearly eleven million low-income Americans were enrolled as recently as 2017, and an astounding 17.6 million were enrolled back in 2012 when the Lifeline program was at its peak.

States with the greatest change in Lifeline enrollment from March 2018-June 2019

Alabama +19%
Alaska +25%
American Samoa +7%
Arizona -24%
Arkansas -6%
California -8%
Colorado -16%
Connecticut -18%
Delaware -32%
District of Columbia -49%
Florida -26%
Georgia -18%
Guam +4%
Hawaii -9%
Idaho -5%
Illinois -15%
Indiana (Unchanged)
Iowa -15%
Kansas -20%
Kentucky -18%
Louisiana (Unchanged)
Maine -15%
Maryland -11%
Massachusetts -26%
Michigan -10%
Minnesota -16%
Mississippi -37%
Missouri -21%
Montana -16%
Nebraska -25%
Nevada -2%
New Hampshire -28%
New Jersey -2%
New Mexico +2%
New York -4%
North Carolina -11%
North Dakota -12%
Ohio -7%
Oklahoma -5%
Oregon +15%
Pennsylvania -14%
Puerto Rico -33%
Rhode Island -19%
South Carolina -10%
South Dakota -10%
Tennessee -18%
Texas -23%
Utah -29%
Vermont -29%
Virginia -19%
Washington -13%
West Virginia -10%
Wisconsin -14%
Wyoming -36%

SOURCE: A Center for Public Integrity analysis of USAC data.

Unfortunately, the government directed more than $2.1 billion to Lifeline back in 2012, nearly twice as much as the current Lifeline budget.

Oh, how the environment has changed, and not for the better as far as low-income Americans are concerned. In Oregon, the number of Lifeline customers is up by 15% while Louisiana and Indiana are treading water. The remaining 47 states have seen enrollment slump dramatically. The worst of those are the District of Columbia, down 49%, Mississippi, down by 37%, and Wyoming, down by 36%.

Analysts differ on their explanations for this huge turnaround. Some experts attribute the decrease to the fact that the economy did so well between 2017 and early 2020. More jobs meant more Americans were working and that lead directly to fewer people qualified for Lifeline. Others attribute it to stricter guidelines and crackdowns on fraud abuse. But then the coronavirus popped up and threw a monkey wrench into all those theories.

USAtoday.com took a close look at the situation and lays the blame at the feet of a number of factors.

In 2012, reforms placed stricter controls on Lifeline funds and created a subscriber database to reduce duplicate accounts. These reforms, along with an improving economy, led to a decline in Lifeline subscribers.

Over the past two years, the FCC has been introducing a computer system that, by automatically confirming eligibility for Lifeline subscribers and taking the review process out of the hands of providers, was supposed to further prevent fraud. A year after the 2018 rollout, however, the screening system isn’t working as planned.

The computer system, called the National Eligibility Verifier, lacks access to key federal and state databases needed to check eligibility. Enrollment is down in several states where the verifier is fully launched. In Mississippi and Wyoming, for example, it has dropped by more than one-third since the rollout began.

In an emailed statement, FCC spokesman Mark Wigfield said the steep drop in subscribers shows the crackdown is working.

“Given the high rate of improper payments in the Lifeline program,” Wigfield wrote, “it makes sense that subscribership in the program is decreasing as more anti-fraud efforts take effect.”

Now there may be another wrinkle, this one caused by the government itself, that could reduce enrollment even further.

Here’s how FreeGovernmentCellPhones.net explained the issue:

The Federal Communications Commission, the government agency that supervises the Lifeline program, wants to increase the amount of mobile data service providers must offer each month, and simultaneously reduce the number of free minutes. While this sounds an improvement that directly addresses the needs of our changing world, critics fear unintended results. To be specific, they know that data costs more than voice minutes and forcing service providers to offer more of the former and less of the latter will put a profit squeeze on participating companies. The “experts” fear that weaker companies will drop out of the program, offering consumers fewer choices.

To be entirely truthful, we cannot make up our minds whether these developments are good or bad. But we promise to keep an eye on the situation and keep our readers updated.

The post Dropping like a rock: ObamaPhone enrollment falls by two million in three years appeared first on Obama Phone.

Here’s big news from the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC recently approved a new $7.17 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund Program.

We can hear you now: “What will they spend the money on.”

Here’s what: The geniuses in Washington, DC say the new program will make it possible for America’s schools and libraries to purchase laptops, tablets, and Wi-Fi hotspots, plus broadband connections. This, of course, will be huge for students and teachers across the country.

The program is part of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. 

Additional details of the new program were laid out by cnet.com:

It also follows the FCC approving a plan in February to administer $3.2 billion in emergency relief to subsidize broadband for millions of Americans during the pandemic. That program will provide $50 per month to low-income households and $75 per month to households on Native American lands to cover the cost of broadband services starting May 12. It also provides $100 toward buying a laptop or tablet.

“Between this Emergency Connectivity Fund Program and the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, we are investing more than $10 billion in American students and households,” Jessica Rosenworcel, acting chairwoman of the FCC, said in a statement Monday. “These investments will help more Americans access online education, healthcare and employment resources. They will help close the homework gap for students nationwide.”

Three. Point. Two. Billion. Dollars.

Coronavirus be damned. We cannot even begin to imagine how much this will help America’s students and teachers. It will surely be a tremendous aid in helping our kids catch up after their previous school year was so devastated by the coronavirus. It will help the older kids find jobs. And it will help all of them get better medical care.

According to the FCC, there may be 17 million children across the US who don’t have access to the broadband needed for remote learning. Those children are “disproportionately from communities of color, low-income households, Tribal lands, and rural areas,” the congresspeople behind the legislation — Sens. Edward J. Markey, Maria Cantwell, Chris Van Hollen, Michael Bennet, Maggie Hassan and Congresswoman Grace Meng — said.

“FCC implementation of the Emergency Connectivity Fund Program is an important step towards ensuring the ‘homework gap’ does not grow into a more damaging learning and opportunity gap for our children, particularly those who live in communities of color, low-income households and rural areas,” Sen. Markey said in a statement Monday evening.

We are accustomed to criticizing almost everything the government does, but we have nothing bad to say about this program. Of course, we are assuming that the government can pull this off without screwing it up, which is always a doubtful.

Let’s hope we are wrong.

The post $7 Billion Bonanza: The new FCC Broadband Connectivity Fund appeared first on Obama Phone.

Sprint just got busted for fraud and fined $200 million by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC said it is the largest single penalty ever assessed to resolve an investigation and the money will go to the United States Treasury.

If you are anything like us, you might wonder exactly what a company might do to deserve such a stiff penalty.

On one hand, the answer is kind of unbelievable. On the other hand, it’s not. Sprint billed the government and continued collecting monthly subsidies for thousands of inactive Lifeline users.

FierceWireless.com has the details:

Sprint’s Lifeline issues at hand and the resulting investigation began last year as the company was still working to win merger approval with T-Mobile, and was first flagged by the Oregon Public Utility Commission.

The carrier had been claiming monthly subsidies under the Lifeline program for 885,000 subscribers, even though they were inactive and not using the service, violating the commission’s “non-usage” rule, an investigation by the FCC’s Enforcement Bureau found.

Many “experts” have tut-tutted and exclaimed their shock at the results of this investigation, but we are not shocked. Anyone who is familiar with the ObamaPhone program has suspected this kind of fraud for a considerable period of time.

We have heard countless comments from readers who cannot seem to get their service cancelled even when they request it from their service provider’s customer service team.

The FCC outlined how many accounts were involved And remember that ObamaPhone companies are paid $9.25 per customer per month. Multiply that by 885,000 customers and then multiply that by twelve months in the year and you have plenty of incentive not to cancel accounts even when customer wants them cancelled. FierceWireless.com report continues:

Sprint delivers wireless Lifeline service to millions of households under the brand Assurance Wireless. At the start of the investigation, the FCC said the 885,000 inactive Lifeline subscribers Sprint was getting paid for represented 30% of the carrier’s total Lifeline base and a full 10% of the entire Lifeline program’s subscribers.

As part of the announcement today, the FCC said Sprint agreed to enter into a compliance plan to make sure it follows the commission’s Lifeline rules in the future.

… From the start Sprint said it was committed to reimbursing federal and state governments for any subsidy payments that were collected as part of the error.

And while the $200 million is a record penalty, according to the FCC, it’s a far cry from investment analysts’ estimates at New Street Research last fall that said in addition to reimbursements, Sprint could face fines totaling in “the low billions of dollars.”

See if you can follow our math: 885,000 customers x $9.25 per month x 12 months in the year. That works out to $98,235,000. In other words, Sprint agreed to a fine amounting to just under two years of service for those customers.

In other words, scamming the government is a very lucrative business. That’s why we would not be surprised if additional Lifeline service providers get fine or charged with fraud in the future.

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Here we are halfway through 2021 and the FCC has had a new, Democratic majority for the last six months, it seems like an appropriate time to take a look at what steps it should be taking with the ObamaPhone program (also known as the Lifeline free government cell phone program).

Communications industry expert, analyst, consultant and commentator Mark Lowenstein has some strong ideas and we agree with him completely. So let’s turn the podium over the him and let him expound on the possible future of ObamaPhones.

Excerpted from his brilliant opinion piece on FierceWireless.com:

… I think the new FCC should, and will, prioritize on universal broadband. The urgency of this issue has been made abundantly clear by the Covid pandemic. It’s also the closest we might get to an objective that could actually have a healthy level of bipartisan support. So, it could be a good ‘early win’ for a new Biden administration. Tens of billions have been spent on this cause since the now 10-year-old Obama-era National Broadband Plan was released. Success has been middling – a combination of erroneous data, poor oversight/execution, and technology that was not quite there yet. But there are many more tools in the toolbox now, including mobile/FWA legitimately in the conversation for some locations and use cases. And the dollars should be there. To start, Biden’s FCC will inherit a $10 billion allocation from the increasingly likely new Stimulus plan. Some proceeds from the gazillions that are going to be raised in the C-band auction could also go a long way toward helping fund some of these initiatives.

… Another issue I’d like the FCC to tackle is affordability. Let’s agree that every individual should have a phone (most likely a cell phone), and every household a broadband connection. This combination is still a tough nugget for anyone with an income below the middle class to afford, and Covid is likely to put many millions more into this unfortunate category in the coming months. Chairman Pai was directionally correct in calling out historic programs such Lifeline for fraud and waste. But he went too far in nearly gutting some of these programs. The FCC needs to come up with a modernized approach to this, with more effective oversight. Broadband availability, universal service, and affordability are all part of the same package of needs. One way to “sell” this effectively is to categorize universal, affordable broadband as a key piece of a national infrastructure plan, which could be among the lowest pieces of potential bipartisan fruit in a still-divided Congress.

Here is our contribution to the discussion and a suggestion for President Biden: Next time there is an opening on the Federal Communications Commission, we heartily nominate Lowenstein. He knows the industry inside and out. He understands the needs of ObamaPhone customers and how to balance them with the real world problems in the program. His experience would allow him to approach the program in a way that no other FCC commissioner ever has.

“Commissioner Lowenstein” has a nice ring to it.

The post Universal broadband for everyone who needs it! Free government cell phones for everyone who needs them! Mark Lowenstein for FCC Commissioner! appeared first on Obama Phone.

One of the most frequent complaints we get from readers is that, “My ObamaPhone was hacked from day one.”

Quite honestly, we have doubted those concepts, but now researchers are telling us those readers may have been right. They tell us that some Lifeline phones (from some Lifeline companies) really are loaded with malware that traps ObamaPhone users in an non-stop series of pop-up ads. Those ads are annoying enough, but it means data is being consumed even when the ObamaPhone user isn’t using his ObamaPhone.

A cnet.com investigator made this report:

The phone’s settings and update apps contained code that allowed them to load malicious apps known as adware. The adware displayed ads that covered users’ screens, no matter what they were doing on their phones.

…Because the phones and their service plans were subsidized by a US program, taxpayers were funding the data that was used to display the promotional campaigns. On top of that, the adware prevented the phones doing their intended job: keeping low-income people connected to vital services via phone and internet.

Evidence suggests pre-installed malware plagues inexpensive phones around the world. Earlier this year, Collier found pre-installed malware, a broad range of disruptive or dangerous apps, on a phone made by Unimax and distributed by the Lifeline program. Collier says he frequently sees similar malware on cheap phones outside the Lifeline program.

As you might expect, Unimax did not appreciate cnet.com’s defining the issue as “malware.” In a comment that made us laugh out loud, it said it preferred to call it “a vulnerability in its settings app.” Sounds so much more innocent, does it not?

But this is not a mere inconvenience to ObamaPhone users. A cell phone — even a free ObamaPhone — is worthless if you can’t use it because it is cursed with pop-up ad after pop-up ad after pop-up ad.

Of course, a spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government agency in charge of the ObamaPhone program said, “The security of Americans’ cell phones is critical, and the FCC urges Lifeline providers to protect consumers from adware and malware.” 

Add this ridiculous situation to recent FBI raid on Q Link, and it becomes obvious that the ObamaPhone program has some major problems. A lot of critics are taking note and asking why the government spends billions of dollars on a program that with so many problems.

Clean it up, FCC, clean it up.

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Tens of thousands of Assist Wireless Lifeline free government cell phone customers have had their personal customer documents exposed online.

Those low-income Americans are enrolled with Assist Wireless in Arkansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri and Oklahoma.

This could result in identity theft for those customers. The stolen documents include drivers licenses, Social Security numbers and United States passports. In other words, exactly the kind of documents customers typically use to prove their identities.

Who has reason to worry? Which customers may be exposed? Primarily those who enrolled in the Lifeline program during calendar years 2019 and 2020.

You may feel relieved that Assist discovered and corrected the problem on its own, but that is not the case. A prominent security researcher actually stumbled across the exposed documents while performing a simple Google search. The researcher in turn passed the news on to TechCrunch and asked them reveal the leak to the character. The exposed documents, according to Assist, were quickly deleted from its website.

Here’s more from TechCrunch.com about how the leak was discovered:

Assist told TechCrunch that it traced the issue to a third-party plug-in, Imagify, which the carrier uses to optimize images on its website. Assist said that the plug-in by default puts a backup of uploaded images in a separate folder, but that the backup location in Assist’s case was not secure.

“We have resolved the issue by turning the backup off and removed the folder from public view,” said Assist.

The carrier told TechCrunch it also submitted an “urgent request” to Google to remove the documents from its cached image search results. (TechCrunch held this story until the images were scrubbed.)
Assist said it is investigating if anyone else found the exposed data before the issue was fixed.

We would not imagine that these are good times to be working in Assist’s public relations department. Here is part of the un-reassuring statement issued in an attempt to put a lid on this story:

“Assist Wireless takes security and consumer data very seriously. We are hiring a third-party security firm to provide us with a thorough security audit and subsequent consultation on ensuring customer data is as safe as possible moving forward.”

This is one of those cases where the incident was truly the case of an accident. Of course, accident or not, those whose identities were stolen cannot be happy with Assist. But to the company’s credit, it seems to be doing everything possible to rectify its own errors.

The post Assist Wireless exposes tens of thousands of customer IDs in five states appeared first on Obama Phone.

The FCC and USAC just eliminated their annoying “port freeze” rule — the regulation that required ObamaPhone users to stay with their service provider for up to one year even if they had really good reasons to switch to a different company.

That’s great news for ObamaPhone customers because the port freeze has always been one of our readers’ biggest complaints.

The old rules required ObamaPhone customers to stay with their current service provider for a full year if their plan included data, and for sixty days if it was voice and text-only.

But thanks to this new regulation, you can no switch service providers any time you want. Theoretically, you could enroll with one ObamaPhone company today, switch to a different one tomorrow, and switch to another one the day after that. Of course, the USAC and FCC don’t anticipate such extreme switching, but it could happen.

That’s very good news for ObamaPhone customers who enrolled with a service provider with a weak or non-existent signal in their area, for those whose who are fed up with their ObamaPhone service providers horrible customer service, and for any customer who wants to switch for any reason.

The USAC.org website explains in more detail:

The Lifeline Program’s port freeze rule was eliminated on March 19, 2018. On that date, port freezes were removed from the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD), and any customers that were in a port freeze had the restriction removed.

USAC will not implement an administrative port freeze. NLAD users should no longer encounter port freeze error messages.

We can always depend on the experts at LifelineLaw.com to explain exactly how you’ll be impacted by the new regulations:

Effective March 19, the Lifeline port freeze rules will be eliminated. The rules, which originally took effect in December 2016, precluded customers from transferring to another provider:

– their Lifeline voice subsidy for 60 days, or
– their Lifeline broadband subsidy for 12 months.

Less than a year later, the FCC determined that the port freeze rules “limit[ed] Lifeline consumers’ ability to seek more competitive offerings and obtain those services that best meet their needs” nor did it promote competition. As part of the rule elimination, NLAD will be updated to remove the port freeze constraints and customers in port freeze status as of that date will have the restriction lifted.

Make the switch

The new regulations eliminate one of the things our readers hate most about the ObamaPhone free government cell phone program.

If you’re unhappy with Lifeline service provider for any reason, switch to another one. If you’re having trouble re-certifying, make the switch. If your service provider’s signal is weak or non-existent, make the switch. If you have a customer service issue and can’t get it resolved, make the switch. If you want a smartphone and your service provider won’t give you one, make the switch. If another company offers more minutes or texts or data, make the switch. If you’re unhappy with your current service provider for any reason, make the switch.

And do it today.

Because there’s no longer any reason to wait now that the port freeze has been eliminated.

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We live in dangerous times. Enemies of the Obama Phone program make no secret of the fact that they want to kill this valuable, important program that helps millions of needy Americans. So it is now time for us to take a stand in favor of the program.

Politicians are complaining that it “costs too much.” But the fact of the matter is that the program is paid for not by taxes, but by a small fee added to every phone bill in the United States.

Regulators are taking aim at the program. Instead of expanding it to include high-speed broadband service, the Federal Communications Commission has reversed course and has “temporarily” killed the broadband expansion.

Proponents of smaller government are hoping the slash spending, especially on government aid programs. President Trump has proposed a budget with $4.1 trillion dollars in cuts on the next ten years — cuts to Medicaid, SNAP (food stamps) and TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). In other words, cuts to the very programs that make America’s needy eligible for the Obama Phone program.

Here’s how vox.com explains the cuts:

• All $880 billion in Medicaid cuts included in the Republican health plan that has passed the House, plus $610 billion in additional cuts due to adopting an even stingier formula for increasing Medicaid funding year over year. This amounts to a total cut to Medicaid of over 47 percent.
• $191 billion in cuts from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, over 10 years. That’s about a 25 percent cut. The administration claims it will achieve this by adding new work requirements, but it would effectively require kicking many people off the program or dramatically cutting benefit amounts.
• $40.4 billion in cuts to the earned income tax credit and child tax credit over 10 years, programs that, along with SNAP, make up much of the US’s safety net for poor people. Trump would require parents receiving benefits to submit a Social Security number to weed out unauthorized immigrants — even those whose children are US citizens.
• $21.6 billion in cuts to Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or welfare, over 10 years. That’s a nearly 13 percent cut to the program, which has already been cut dramatically since the 1990s.

Since the rules of the Lifeline Assistance program were changed back in December, 2016 TANF is no longer one of the programs by which you can qualify for an Obama Phone. But Tribal TANF can still be used to qualify by Native Americans.

BusinessInsider.com reports that President Obama recently defended the ObamaCare program against those who would destroy it:

Former President Barack Obama took a swipe at his successor during a private even Thursday, noting that polls have shown the Affordable Care Act to be more popular than President Donald Trump.

A person who attended the event paraphrased Obama’s comments to CNN, saying Obama told the audience in Manhattan that the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, is more popular than the current president.

Recent polling has shown that Obamacare has hit its highest popularity ever, drawing the support of 55% of Americans in a Gallup survey on April 4.

In comparison, the most recent reading on Trump’s approval rating from Gallup on Thursday sat at 43%, with 52% disapproving of the president’s handling of his job.

While this is all well and good, we believe the former President needs to offer an equally strong defense of Obama Phones, his other signature program.

And former President Obama isn’t the only one who needs to speak out. So do you. So do your friends and neighbors. So does anyone who knows how vital this program is to America’s financially disadvantaged.

Here’s how you can make your voice heard and help save the Obama Phone program:

Contact the Federal Communications Commission

Write to the Federal Communications Commission and ask it to keep the Obama Phone program alive. If you want to write a letter or make a phone call, here’s the contact info you need:

Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554

If you want to email the FCC Chairman Ajit Pai or any of the other FCC Commissioners, here are their email addresses:

Chairman Ajit Paid: Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: Jessica.Rosenworcel@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael O’Rielly:  Michael.orielly@fcc.gov

If you want to call the FCC, the toll-free phone number is 1-888-CALL FCC (225-5322)

Contact your local member of the House of Representatives.

Tell them how important the Obama Phone program is and demand that it be fully funded. You can find your local representative’s address and phone number here:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Just plug in your zip code and you will quickly find the name of your local Representative and all his or her contact information.

Contact your United States Senator.

Each state has two United States Senators. Contact each of them to tell how much the Obama Phone program has helped you and your family and implore him or her not to kill the program, but to expand it to even more needy Americans. You can find your United States Senator’s address and phone number here:

https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/

Don’t just sit there.

Don’t just sit there. Do something. Get active. Make your voice heard. They want to take away your Obama Phone. And if you don’t do something, the Obama Phone program will simply fade away into the mists of history.

Call. Email. Write a letter. But do it now.

The post Obama is gone, and now his enemies want to kill the Obama Phone program appeared first on Obama Phone.

Seventy percent of Americans want their municipal governments to provide internet service according to a recent study conducted by the highly-respected Pew Research Center.

Pew surveyed more than 4,000 people and 70% of them said their local governments should be allowed to build their own high-speed networks if their other choices are “too expensive or not good enough.”

Unfortunately, that’s just not possible in many parts of the United States, because more than 20 states have passed laws make if difficult or impossible for local governments to build out and offer high-speed internet services to their residents.

As CheapInternet.com reported, “There are currently 135 municipalities across the nation that have built or announced plans to build their own fiber optic networks to bring dependable, affordable, high-speed internet service to their residents. On the other hand, twenty states have passed laws — at the behest of cable television and telephone company lobbyists — that inhibit the ability of municipalities to offer cable services to their citizens. Some states have passed such restrictive laws that muni networks are virtually impossible to build or operate.”

BroadbandNow.com breaks down the 20 states into seven categories of difficulty and impossibility:

Administrative Hurdles: North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Virginia
No Direct Sale: Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington
Referendum (or Vote): Alabama, Colorado, Louisiana, and Minnesota
Population Caps: Nevada
Feasibility Studies: Utah
Request for Proposal: Michigan
Excessive Taxes: Florida



It’s easy to see why people love their municipal networks, but changing the laws that prohibit them is far more difficult than it may sound. For example, in 2015 the Federal Communications Commission said municipalities could ignore laws that kept them from building broadband networks, but state legislators, flush with contributions from cable TV companies, eventually kept the prohibitions in place.

Year in and year out, cable TV companies find themselves at the top of lists of companies Americans love to hate. Customers say that prices are outrageously high, service is notoriously poor, and customer service is a joke.

The Pew study, unfortunately, shows that the concept of muni networks is far more popular than broadband subsidies for low-income households. Only 44% of respondents support those subsidies. Most surprising to us, most of the remaining respondents think high-speed internet service “is affordable enough.”

From our point of view, this is the most shocking result of the Pew study. We fully supported the FCC’s recently aborted plan to add Lifeline Broadband to the Obama Phone program. The fact that most Americans think internet service “is affordable enough” frankly leaves us dumbfounded. We know how desperately low-income Americans need more affordable internet service for the same reasons they need Obama Phones — for adults to find jobs and for their children to keep up in school.

It looks as if we need to redouble our efforts in support of the Obama Phone and Lifeline Broadband programs. And your support is needed, too. Please contact your Congressional representatives and the Federal Communications Commission to express your point of view.

The post Tired of high prices, poor service, awful customer service: Americans want municipal broadband service appeared first on Obama Phone.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, no Lifeline Broadband to no Lifeline Broadband. The Federal Communications Commission has killed the Lifeline Broadband plan it spent years developing — before it actually got off the ground.

Now in the interest of accuracy, we should note that Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai didn’t actually order an end to the program. Instead, he craftily created some regulatory roadblocks that have the effect of killing the program. According to Gizmodo.com, he ordered “…the agency to eliminate the federal approval process for broadband providers who want to provide service through the LifeLine program, which administers subsidies for phone and internet service.”

Translation?

Last year, the FCC created a streamlined, “one stop shopping” federal approval process that allowed LifeLine Broadband Providers to get subsidies for service in any state with one federal approval. Now, thanks to Pai’s edict, broadband providers will need to jump through approval hoops over and over and over again in each state in which they want to provide service. It’s an expensive, time-consuming process and will probably be enough of a burden to drive away smaller companies that do not have the money, time or stomach for the fight.

As Chairman Pai clearly understood when he issued his edict, there are no state regulatory structures in place to approve LifeLine Broadband service providers, because the FCC told the states last year that all approvals would be handled at the federal level. No approval process means no approvals.

Voila! The Lifeline Broadband program dies because there is no way for it to move forward.

The original LifeLine free government cell phone program pays service providers a subsidy of $9.25 per month for phone service. Clever cell phone companies figured out how offer cell phone service for free by using that subsidy to fund their entire operations. We anticipated that some of the new Lifeline Broadband Providers would also figure out how to provide high speed internet service for free, but now it looks like we’ll never know.

Sounding more like a stand-up comic than a government official, Pai says that eliminating this simplified federal process will “strengthen the Lifeline program and put the implementation of last year’s order on a solid legal footing.”

In reality, forcing regulation back on the states will result in unacceptably long delays for financially-struggling Americans who desperately need high-speed internet access so adults can compete for jobs and so children can compete in school.

As gizmodo.com reports, “Companies that want to provide subsidized voice services will still be able to get designated as LifeLine providers in the states and then sell broadband services, but any company that just wants to provide broadband—like an educational broadband or cable company—is likely out of luck until each state updates their regulatory mechanisms. That’s generally is the kind of thing that takes forever, and it has to happen in all 50 states.”

It doesn’t take a very clear crystal ball to see that Lifeline Broadband Providers will concentrate their efforts on states with large populations and simpler approval processes. Other states (and their low-income residents) will be left with nothing.

It took the FCC three years to bring Lifeline Broadband to life. It took a stroke of Chairman Pai’s pen to kill it.

There’s a country song by Micky and the Motorcars that says, “It’s a long road to nowhere.” After three years of empty promises, one can only say that is a perfect way to describe the sad history of Lifeline Broadband.

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