FCC Members Still Have Lots to Talk About Prior to Lifeline Vote
Negotiations among the three FCC members on the Lifeline order scheduled for a Jan. 31 vote are expected to get under way in earnest later this week. Questions remain about the mechanisms in the order for controlling the size of the Lifeline fund and are expected to be the subject of more discussion headed into the meeting. FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski put the Lifeline order on the Sunshine notice, released Tuesday afternoon, scheduling the order for a vote at next week’s meeting and cutting off further lobbying. Both Genachowski and FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell are in Geneva for the early part of this week, attending the opening of the World Radiocommunication Conference.
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Representatives of the Rainbow Push Coalition met with Genachowski Friday to talk about why the Lifeline and Link-Up programs are vital to poor Americans. They gave Genachowski a letter from founder Jesse Jackson discussing his concerns. “The purpose of the meeting was to give the Chairman a sense of everyday life in low income communities and provide examples of how, without a telephone, poor people become disconnected from society,” said an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmpoto). “Without phone service, the most basic processes and activities become difficult, limiting options and possibilities for the poor and pushing them to the fringe of society.” The latest statistics show that 40 percent of Americans have no discretionary income, coalition members told Genachowski.
Members of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Media and Telecom Task Force made similar arguments during a recent phone call with Chief Sharon Gillett and others at the Wireline Bureau. “We believe adopting a cap or a budget for Lifeline program is premature at this time, particularly with the recent adoption of waste, fraud and abuse reforms and the Commission’s intent to expand the program to broadband -- all eligible consumers should still be able to benefit from the program,” they said in an ex parte filing (http://xrl.us/bmpo3h). They also backed “an immediate expansion of the Lifeline program to broadband, enabling low-income participants to purchase bundled broadband services with their monthly subsidy."
Verizon and AT&T have been at the agency in recent days to discuss the Lifeline order. Verizon representatives expressed general support for “reform of the Lifeline fund and the overall goals of those reforms,” in a meeting with Genachowski aide Zac Katz, Gillett and other officials (http://xrl.us/bmpoup). AT&T officials were at the FCC Monday, with an ex parte expected to be filed late Tuesday after our deadline.
T-Mobile officials, meanwhile, urged the FCC to tighten its standards for qualifying as an eligible telecom carrier under the program. Doing so would “ensure that Lifeline is provided by carriers with sufficient incentives to comply with the Commission’s rules,” the carrier said (http://xrl.us/bmpo32). T-Mobile said ETC applicants “should be required to make showings of financial and technical capability to provide the supported services (including consideration of whether the carrier offers services in addition to Lifeline service) in order to be designated as Lifeline ETCs."
Several filings touch on the broadband pilots expected to be created by the FCC as its moves forward on Lifeline reform, with a public notice expected shortly seeking applicants.
"It is critical that the Commission include a rigorous evaluation plan in its design of a broadband pilot, and that the pilot evaluation should examine broadband adoption not just as a question of whether or not an individual subscribes to a subsidized service, but as a nuanced outcome,” representatives of the New America Foundation said in a meeting with Katz, Gillett and others. The foundation “also asked that any data collected through the pilot process ... be made publicly available so that other entities could analyze and evaluate the data, particularly where it may be significant to research collected as a part of existing and future broadband adoption programs.”
Meanwhile, the Universal Service Administrative Co. filed recent data on the Lifeline program at the FCC, offering a break down of the number of subscribers and dollars on a state-by-state basis through September (http://xrl.us/bmpo8a). While California ($122 million, 1.6 million subscribers) and New York ($95.5 million, 1 million subscribers) led the list, some smaller states also saw widespread participation in the program. Oklahoma, for example, had 277,754 Lifeline subscribers and an $88.1 million program. The report tracks the rapid growth in the program -- an $802 million program in 2005 that grew to $1.7 billion last year.