FCC approves new measures for Lifeline operation
The rules will allow to fight the fraud in the subsidies, duplication of users and commissions by new subscribers to the program
The federal program, Lifeline in the United States, which offers monthly discounts to low-income clients has been involved in acts of fraud, due to the misuse of its resources in the duplication of user to the program, commissions for new subscribers and fees for nonexistent or dead users, among other cases.
Given this, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) intends to combat subsidy fraud, with the application of new measures which have already been approved by the state agency.
The legal regulations include that the authorities of each state have access to relevant program information and get involved again in the tracking of “suspicious activities”. It also refers to the prohibition of the operators for the cancellation of sales to their agents based on the consumers that make up Lifeline. In addition, each employee of this type will have to register their data in the administrator.
Lifeline armor
According to FCC, it will work to continue reinforcing the prohibition of the providers of the program claiming resources for deceased subscribers, as well as increasing the mechanisms to detect the duplication of registered users, avoiding that fictitious users can obtain reimbursement for it. This incidence has repeated since 2011; that is, operators that receive support with ineligible or non-existent subscribers.
The most recent case was generated in Sprint, due to the improper use of subsidies of 885 thousand lines that were inactive and had to be annulled. It is important to mention that this number of subscribers represents a third of its Lifeline base, an alert for some FCC commissioners and other organizations who indicated that the review of their merger with T-Mobile should be stopped until the investigation was concluded.
K.Villarroel
Source: digitalpolicylaw
