Universal Service Fund

The misconduct alleged today, if true, amounts to corporate malfeasance. A single company apparently misappropriated funds for nearly 10 percent of the entire Lifeline program. I am outraged. There is no credible way that the merger before us can proceed until this Lifeline investigation is resolved and responsible parties are held accountable.

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) announced the launch of the National Lifeline Eligibility Verifier for all new enrollments in Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Vermont, Virginia, and West Virginia. Starting on October 23, 2019, eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) in these eleven states will be required to use the National Verifier’s eligibility determination process for all consumers applying for Lifeline service and must cease using legacy eligibility processes for prospective Lifeline subscribers.

The Federal Communications Commission has learned that Sprint claimed monthly subsidies for serving approximately 885,000 Lifeline subscribers, even though those subscribers were not using the service. That would be a violation of a key rule—the “non-usage” rule—designed to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse in the Lifeline program.

USTelecom, which represents large and small incumbent telecommunication companies, including AT&T, Verizon, and CenturyLink, supported a report that discusses the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). The report was written by Tony Clark, a former chairman of the North Dakota Public Service Commission and past president of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and Monica Martinez, a former Michigan public services commissioner. A current concern expressed by the authors pertains specifically to the price cap carriers

Sen Ed Markey (D-MA) and 29 other senators wrote a letter to the Federal Communications Commission requesting that the agency discard any plans for setting an overall cap for the Universal Service Fund (USF) programs. "Such a proposal would harm broadband deployment, rural health care opportunities, classroom learning, and life-long learning through public libraries by forcing them to compete in order to receive necessary funds.

The Federal Communications Commission took a step in its efforts to streamline and strengthen consumer eligibility verification for the Lifeline program, as a nationwide automated connection between the Medicaid program and the Lifeline National Eligibility Verifier went live Sept 17. The connection between the Medicaid and Lifeline databases means that the eligibility of up to 60% of the Lifeline-eligible population can be confirmed automatically.

In 2012, 70 percent of schools lacked internet connections fast enough to support basic administrative and instructional needs (100 kilobytes per person), but now only 1.6 percent of school districts fail to meet that low bar. Despite this progress, the Federal Communications Commission is considering changes to the E-Rate program, which subsidizes internet access in schools across the country. The proposal would cap spending and potentially decrease the funding available to schools.

The Aug. 12 Washington Post editorial “Stuck without Internet” outlined possible solutions to address the challenge of connecting more Americans to the Internet. We already have a broadband program to bridge the divide for poor rural Americans.

It’s September and the new school year is underway. Across the country, students are filing into their new classrooms and meeting their new teachers. They are also getting ready for something familiar in education — and that’s homework. What is new about homework, however, is that it now requires internet service. Today, seven in 10 teachers assign homework that requires online access. But data from the Federal Communications Commission, where I work, consistently shows that one in three households does not subscribe to broadband. Where those numbers overlap is the homework gap. 

In the spring of 2015, KentuckyWired, the Bluegrass State's ambitious plan to bring high-speed internet access into rural areas, had ground to a halt. Officials were in talks with Macquarie Capital, an Australian investment bank known for organizing big infrastructure projects around the globe, to build and manage the new network.