WTA Responds to FCC USF Lifeline Modernization NPRM

This week, WTA filed comments with the FCC in response to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on modernizing the USF Lifeline Program. The comments focused on ensuring benefits are distributed by legitimate providers to eligible customers with minimum friction and that the burdens placed on Lifeline services providers are not unnecessarily onerous.

Specifically, WTA urges the FCC to not adopt the proposal to require Lifeline providers to collect all nine digits of an applicant’s Social Security number and to only require resale Lifeline service providers to monitor customer usage to ensure that any customers that do not use their service each month are de-enrolled. WTA also notes that the proposal to eliminate minimum monthly data allowances does not fully take account of the FCC’s purposes for including those allowances while likely understating the needs of Lifeline-eligible households and that some of the NPRM proposals introduce significant new friction that could prevent or delay customers from activating Lifeline service, with little recognition of these new costs.