FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler plans to circulate a draft order today, for consideration at the agency’s March 31 meeting, that would expand Lifeline support to standalone and bundled broadband services, create a streamlined federal process for providers not currently participating in the program to become certified, and establish a program budget of $2.25 billion, indexed to inflation.
Senior FCC officials told reporters during a background briefing that they do not expect consumer participation to jump immediately to the new budget level, which is a 50% increase over the $1.5 billion in Lifeline subsidies provided in support of current enrollees. About one-third of the 40 million income-eligible households in the U.S. currently participate in Lifeline; if enrollment increased to use $2.25 billion annually, roughly an additional 5 million households would be supported, bring participation to about 50% of income-eligible households, officials said.
Under the draft order, voice-only service would still be eligible for support, but for mobile services, voice-only support would end in 2020. Support for fixed voice-only service would continue “in light of ongoing affordability challenges,” the FCC said in a fact sheet describing the draft order.
The draft order would set minimum speeds and data buckets for services eligible for the subsidy, which would remain at the current $9.25 per month, with a limit of one subsidy per household. Lifeline-eligible fixed broadband offerings would have to meet a speed standard “based on what a substantial majority of consumers receive (currently 10 Mbps downloads/1 Mbps uploads),” the fact sheet says, with a minimum monthly data allowance of 150 gigabytes. Lifeline-eligible mobile broadband offerings would be required to include at least 500 megabytes of monthly data at 3G speeds initially, and at least 2 GB of monthly data by the end of 2018, as well unlimited mobile voice minutes starting Dec. 1 of this year.
Providers could choose between the existing state eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) certification processes and a new, streamlined, national ETC certification process administered by the FCC. —Lynn Stanton, lynn.stanton@wolterskluwer.com
Courtesy TRDaily