Allow TracFone's Lifeline Petition, Sprint says
The FCC should approve TracFone’s petition for a rulemaking on whether to allow Lifeline subscribers to show they’re using the program by sending a text, Sprint and the Lifeline Reform 2.0 Coalition said in comments posted Friday in docket 11-42.…
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Lifeline providers can be reimbursed under the program only for subscribers who use the service within the previous 60 days, Sprint said in its comments. While texting is not a Lifeline service, sending a text using a Lifeline-supported wireless phone “demonstrates that the subscriber did not abandon” the service “and is not engaging in waste, fraud or abuse,” Sprint said. The commission should allow Lifeline broadband and data services as proof of usage, as well, said the coalition, which is made up of Blue Jay Wireless, Global Connection of America and Telrite. Failing to recognize text messaging, broadband and data services “impermissibly discriminates against Lifeline subscribers with various disabilities for whom text messaging or certain smartphone applications may be the preferred or only accessible method of communication,” the coalition's comments said. “Such discrimination impermissibly flies in the face of the goals of the Lifeline program and the disabilities access requirements of the Communications Act,” the filing said.