FCC's Pai targets Lifeline fraudsters, but doesn't propose a funding cap

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai is looking to root out waste, fraud and abuse in Lifeline, the FCC's phone subsidy program for the poor. But he's not ready to cap the budget on the program just yet. His office began circulating its latest proposal for cleaning up the program. The latest proposed action is what the FCC is calling an "administrative clean-up" but it doesn't tackle some of the more controversial items on the agency's to-do list, such as instituting a funding cap and excluding wireless resellers from participating in the program. The FCC is still considering those issues separately.

The biggest fix to the Lifeline program in this proposal is making sure that subsidies go to people who are alive. Specifically, the agency will put in additional requirements to ensure that carriers enrolling subscribers can verify the person is still living. It will also prohibit carriers from incentivizing employees or agencies tasked with signing up new customers by paying commissions for the number of customers they enroll.