FCC Ignored Evidence, Hasn't Shown Harms of MSS Freeze, Says NaLA
The Wireline Bureau’s 4.5-a-month GB Lifeline minimum service standard order will “heave” customers and providers “into a new digital divide created by the FCC’s results-driven, record-be-damned decision-making,” said the National Lifeline Association in a brief (in Pacer) filed Wednesday in…
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the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (see 2011240059). The agency doesn’t use record evidence to rebut claims from providers that the MSS increase will kill the Lifeline program, NaLA said. “Instead, the FCC speculates that a general trend downward in wireless rates will make it possible for carriers to absorb a 50% data increase on December 1 with no increased subsidy.” The FCC’s brief pointed to a T-Mobile statement it will offer a Lifeline plan at 4.5 GB as evidence that the MSS is viable, but T-Mobile -- and thus its Lifeline provider subsidy Assurance -- doesn’t have to buy spectrum like other Lifeline providers do, NaLA said. The 4.5 GB MSS “will create a new chasm with 31% of Lifeline subscribers served by T-Mobile’s Assurance having free access to 4.5 GB while 63% served by wireless resellers (overwhelmingly T-Mobile’s wholesale partners) will not,” NaLA said. The FCC hasn’t shown that freezing the MSS at 3 GB will cause any harms, NaLA said. “All Lifeline stakeholders, including carriers, public interest groups, state commissions and commissioners, and policymakers from both parties, agreed that the FCC should pause the MSS at 3 GB to avoid jeopardizing affordable free Lifeline mobile broadband service and delay any MSS changes.” T-Mobile and the FCC didn’t comment.