Ohio will be revisiting the details of its Lifeline service thanks to...

rehearing of the commission’s May 23 finding and order, which “established certain requirements for the provision of Lifeline service, including those necessitated by the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC’s) Report and Order in In the Matter of Lifeline and Link Up Reform and Modernization, Lifeline and Link Up, Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, Advancing Broadband Availability Through Digital Literacy Training,” the commission said (http://xrl.us/bnhfj9). It judges that TracFone and Virgin Mobile have “sufficient reason” to question its ruling and now promises “further consideration,” the commission said. In its June 22 objection, Virgin Mobile called the Ohio commission’s Lifeline order “unreasonable and unlawful,” “contrary to the public interest in that it is discriminatory and anti-competitive with respect to prepaid Lifeline service providers,” and in requesting a rehearing, added it hopes the commission “reverse its finding that reimbursement from USAC to prepaid wireless Lifeline providers is includable for purposes of calculating the 9-1-1 assessment” and “reverse its order directing the remittance of 9-1-1 fees that would have been collected retroactively to the date of ETC designation” (http://xrl.us/bnhfma). In its application for a rehearing, TracFone asserts “non-billed, free Lifeline services are not prepaid services and Ohio law imposes no such 911 fee remittance obligations on non-billed free Lifeline services where there is no available mechanism for collecting such fees from qualified low-income consumers of such non-billed free services,” and said one subset of ETCs, wireless resellers, shouldn’t be singled out for a retroactive obligation for fees that couldn’t have been collected.