In March the Public Utility Commission of Ohio allowed AT&T to withdraw from the federal Lifeline program. This is a program that let’s qualified low-income homes get a monthly discount of $9.25 from either their landline telephone or their broadband connection – only one discount per home. AT&T successfully withdrew from Lifeline in Illinois in 2018 and in twelve other states in 2017.
AT&T apparently hasn’t been advertising or pushing the potential discount since they only had 7,300 homes in the state on the Lifeline program. The Communications Workers of America say there are almost 1.6 million households in Ohio that qualify for the discount – although not all of them are served by AT&T.
You might think that AT&T supports Lifeline by looking at their web site. However, clicking through to Ohio notifies customers that the discount will end in June and provides customers a list of other companies that might offer them the discount.
The Lifeline program started in 1985, and at the time the amount of discount was a significant savings for customers. Because of inflation the $9.25 discount represents a far smaller portion of a today’s monthly telecommunications bill.
Participation in the Lifeline program has dropped significantly in the past few years, as has the way the fund is being used. The following revenue numbers come from the 2018 annual report from USAC – the entity that operates the Lifeline Fund. I extraopolated out the number of participants at $9.25 per month.
| 2016 | 2018 | |
| Telephone | $1,477,548,000 | $312,300,000 |
| Bundle | $25,554,000 | $293,707,000 |
| Broadband | $18,610,000 | $536,424,000 |
| Total | $1,521,712,000 | $1,142,431,000 |
| Participants | 13,700,000 | 10,250,000 |
Since 2016 there are 2.5 million fewer participants in the plan – many certainly due to carriers like AT&T withdrawing from the plan. The USAC numbers show a big shift since 2016 of participants applying the discount to their broadband bill rather than to landline telephone or cellphone bill.
The Lifeline Program was in the news recently when the FCC Inspector General issued a fraud advisory that says there are a lot of duplicate names requesting Lifeline and a number of deceased people still getting the discount. Chairman Ajit Pai immediately issued a statement saying that the program needs to be cleaned up.
Fraud has always been a concern in the program. However, it’s a little odd for the FCC to be complaining about fraud today since they are in the process of taking over validation of Lifeline subscribers. Eligibility to participate in Lifeline was previously the responsibility of the states, but in June, 2018 USAC launched the National Verifier, a database that lists everybody eligible to receive a Lifeline credit. As of the end of last year, the federal verifier was active in 18 states, with the remaining states and territories joining the program this year. It seems odd to be yelling about problems of the older state programs when the FCC has already implemented a solution that they believe will solve most of the fraud issues.
I published a blog several days ago saying how regulators are letting the public down. It’s mystifying to me why the Ohio PUC and so many other states are letting AT&T out of the Lifeline program. The Lifeline Fund reimburses AT&T for every discount given to customers, so there is zero net cost to AT&T to participate in the plan. With the new National Verifier, AT&T takes no role in enrolling customers, who must enter through the national Verifier portal. I don’t know why regulators don’t insist that AT&T and every other company that sells residential telephone and broadband be required to participate in the program.