AT&T Wants Mandatory Lifeline Service Requirements Lifted
AT&T will ask the FCC to lift rules that require the company to be a default wireline Lifeline provider, Executive Vice President Bob Quinn said Friday. Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski circulated a proposed order on Lifeline Tuesday (CD Jan 10 p1). “We're disappointed about what we're hearing,” Quinn said, saying company officials will meet with eighth floor officials next week to ask that decades-old rules requiring wireline incumbents to offer Lifeline service be lifted. Quinn said at least one-third of Lifeline customers have switched from wireline to wireless, and AT&T ought, therefore, not to be forced to offer the service.
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AT&T is one of the biggest Lifeline providing companies. The company and TracFone’s parent company account for at least half of all Lifeline customers, government records show (CD Jan 9 p7). But most of AT&T’s 2.2 million Lifeline customers are wireline customers, government statistics show. Wireline subscriptions have been dropping by nearly 10 percent per year, telecom officials said.
FCC staffers have told telecom officials that most of the fraud that has occupied Genachowski’s attention in the Lifeline proceeding has involved duplicate claims among wireless, not wireline, services, telecom officials told us Friday.
FCC staffers have been circulating news clips from KMOV-TV St. Louis, telecom officials said. The clips (http://xrl.us/bmon6x) show wireless company officials handing out Lifeline-subsidized cell phones to customers without even pretending to check whether the customers are eligible for the service. They also demonstrate that Sen Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., was offered a free Lifeline phone at her condo, despite earning $174,000 per year (http://xrl.us/bmon6z).
Genachowski said in his remarks launching the proposed order that he was sure he could keep Lifeline and Link-Up on a budget by eliminating the estimated 200,000 duplicative claims. In the past several weeks, Lifeline companies have received letters from the Universal Service Administrative Co. detailing allegations of duplicative claims, a telecom official said.
TracFone has been lobbying heavily on the issue, records at docket 11-42 show. On Thursday, officials from TracFone went back to the FCC to lobby once again for the company’s proposed database. “In addition, we discussed the Commission’s plans to establish a budget for the low-income program,” the company said in an ex parte notice (http://xrl.us/bmon5d). TracFone also said it had an “interest” in offering broadband service to its customers and asked the FCC not to require Lifeline customers to pay a minimum fee for their service, the company said in its ex parte notice.
The Lifeline order, which will be voted at the Jan. 31 open meeting, also sets “national” eligibility criteria, but it’s not clear how those criteria differ from current standards, telecom officials said. TracFone urged the FCC not to require Lifeline carriers to document customers’ eligibility. The company told FCC officials that “mandatory documentation of program-based eligibility increases Eligible Telecommunications Carriers’ costs of enrolling customers and, more importantly, precludes many qualified low-income consumers from completing the enrollment process and receiving Lifeline benefits,” TracFone’s ex parte notice said.