GAO Report Bolsters Need for Lifeline Broadband Expansion

[Commentary] The Lifeline program allows our nation’s most vulnerable communities to maintain telephone service that would otherwise be unaffordable – service that is essential for connecting with loved ones, searching for employment, pursuing further education goals, engaging fully as citizens, and calling 911. But a recent Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, commissioned by Sen. John Thune (R-SD) to evaluate the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) reforms to the Lifeline program, quickly drew fire from some Republican leaders. They allege that the FCC should not work on expanding the program to broadband until it addresses points raised in the GAO report. But to call to a halt the FCC’s planned reform efforts based on this report would be to ignore its findings.

The FCC is about to begin the next phase of reform to expand Lifeline into supporting broadband, which will give it ample opportunity to implement GAO recommendations where they make most sense. The need for expansion is urgent. Increases in broadband adoption rate are slowing and, in fact, posted a decline for the lowest income households in 2013. In March, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights urged the FCC to protect and modernize the Lifeline program by implementing this type of expansion. “As broadband rapidly replaces voice service as the basic communications tool for our era, the FCC should rapidly update Lifeline to match the times,” the letter states. “Increasing broadband adoption will improve the economic well-being of those populations as well as the economic competitiveness of our country as a whole.”

[Cheryl Leanza is policy advisor for the United Church of Christ's media justice ministry]