FCC Staff Lifeline Report Sparks Calls for Changes
The FCC Wireline Bureau Lifeline report (see 2107060056) highlights the need for commissioners to consider pausing increases in standards, stakeholders said in recent interviews. Some said the agency should delay the phase-down in voice-only support and consider increasing the subsidy amount, particularly amid the pandemic. The report released about two weeks ago said the formula for updating minimum service standards will "continue to yield increasingly high results." MSS increases have sparked concerns.
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Enrollment growth began dropping before COVID-19, said Amir Nasr, New America Open Technology Institute policy analyst. It's “indicative of a program that has not only been neglected but actively harmed over the past five years.” The FCC should pause MSS increases, Nasr said, because the report doesn’t say whether that’s driving enrollment: “Unfortunately, this report is only a first step in kind of finding out a lot of that information.”
The report confirmed consumers are using more voice minutes. “I’m not sure that that trend is going to stop post-pandemic,” said Public Knowledge Senior Policy Counsel Jenna Leventoff. “This service that people just keep forgetting about is in fact continually important to consumers.” Leventoff said the FCC should consider pausing the phase-down of voice-only support to zero in December. The document shows “unintended consequences of minimum service standards that are having negative impacts right now on low-income consumers,” said NTCA Senior Vice President Industry Affairs Mike Romano.
The FCC could consider staff’s recommendation to pause future increases and seek comment, said John Heitmann of Kelley Drye, which has Lifeline and other telecom clients. “Once and for all revisit and decide the reconsideration petitions on the mobile broadband minimum service standards that have been pending since 2016” because the formula “does not take into account affordability” and “needs to be replaced” (see 2011170064), he said. Some want Universal Service Administrative Co. to get data newer than its latest from 2020 on Lifeline.
An FCC spokesperson said Wednesday that USAC recently implemented "several changes" to the Lifeline national verifier to improve user experience, including "the addition of an application status bar, giving consumers the option to update an email address or add a secondary email address, and the option for live translation call support at USAC’s Lifeline call centers for over 200 additional languages." FCC acting Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel "remains committed to a Lifeline program that is focused on connecting qualifying consumers with Lifeline services and believes that the program is a key component of closing the country’s digital divide," the spokesperson said.
Identify consumers' needs and address MSS or data caps, said R Street Technology and Innovation Fellow Jeffrey Westling. Providers may decide not to participate if it “gets to the point where the plans aren’t worth it.” It may be time to start talking about a permanent benefit similar to the emergency broadband benefit program instead, Westling said.
Open a proceeding to understand COVID-19's impact on broadband needs, said New Street’s Blair Levin. That should have happened as soon as July 2020, Levin said, and doing so will help identify what the minimum performance standards should be. That this hasn't happened is “problematic,” he said.
Part of the problem in addressing Lifeline revisions is the FCC lacks a fifth commissioner, Nasr said, and until one is seated it could work toward bringing the Lifeline program back to where it was in 2016 to support stand-alone broadband: The national verifier “should really be something that the four commissioners together can work on and ensure that it’s fully up and running.” Anything the commission does would require a “consensus approach,” Westling noted.