US House to vote on whether poor people need mobile phones

The US House of Representatives could end the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Lifeline subsidized phone program in a vote today.

The bill, HR5525 or the End Taxpayer Funded Cell Phones Act of 2016, threatens to prohibit the FCC paying out subsidies to mobile phone carriers who offer discounted mobile phone service for low-income customers.

The program, which was launched under the Reagan administration in 1985, was designed to give low-income households access to emergency services by eliminating the hurdle of high phone bills.

The program was later updated to give the option of using mobile phone service rather than landline and, under a 2016 reform, broadband internet service was added to the program.

HR5525, introduced by Representative Austin Scott (R-GA), would cut the program by prohibiting the FCC from using its Universal Service Fund to pay out subsidies to mobile phone providers to help cover the costs of the discounted phone service.

Additionally, the bill would call for mobile carriers to pay back any funds they received from the FCC this year in 2017.

This is not the first time Scott has moved to kill mobile phone service for the poor. A bill with the same title was introduced by the Congressman in 2014 and failed to pass.

Among those opposing the current iteration of the bill is mobile industry lobbying group CTIA – The Wireless Company, which argues in a letter to Congressional leaders that the bill "ignores America's inexorable shift away from wireline and toward wireless service, and the reality that many of those the Lifeline program aims to help, like the homeless, simply cannot be served with wireline connections."

"While CTIA appreciates the interest some have in limiting the size of the Lifeline program, capping the Lifeline program may be counterproductive to encouraging low-income consumers to adopt communications services that are essential to participation in today's economy."

The Register will have more on the story as it develops. ®