What did the FCC do to the eligibility criteria?
The FCC revised the program eligibility criteria to: (1) remove the Low–Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP); National School Lunch Program's free lunch program (NSLP); and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) from the list of Lifeline-eligible federal programs; (2) add the Veterans Pension benefit to the list of Lifeline-eligible federal programs; and (3) remove state-specific eligibility criteria for federal Lifeline support.
As a result, the list of Lifeline-eligible programs changed to include only SNAP, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Federal Public Housing Assistance (FPHA), or the Veterans Pension benefit.
What did the states do?
Alaska, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah either waived or revised their rules so that the state eligibility requirements now mirror the federal Lifeline eligibility requirements.
In addition, several petitions for waiver were filed at the FCC asking for more time to implement these changes. Petitions were filed by both the industry and individual states. In the end, the FCC agreed to waive the effective date of the new eligibility requirements in the eight states that have a Lifeline eligibility database (that ETCs are required to use) but were not able to update that database to align it with the amended federal criteria in time. In each state, the waiver will run from December 2, 2016, until the sooner of the date specified below or when the state aligns its eligibility criteria with the FCC’s Lifeline eligibility rules and updates its eligibility databases accordingly. In all other states, the rules became effective as scheduled on December 2, 2016.
State |
Effective Date |
California |
October 31, 2017 |
Maryland |
October 31, 2017 |
Michigan |
December 31, 2017 |
New York |
December 1, 2017 |
Utah |
October 31, 2017 |
Vermont |
October 31, 2017 |
Washington |
June 30, 2017 |
Wisconsin |
December 31, 2017 |
What other changes have caught the states’ attention?
Some of the states, such as Kansas and South Carolina, revised their rules to include some or all of these other changes; other states such as Nevada and the District of Columbia have ongoing proceedings to consider rule revisions to reflect these additional changes. With respect to port freezes, the FCC granted California and Oregon a waiver of the effective date of these new requirements until no later than June 1, 2017. The waiver was granted because both of those states opted out of the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD) and need additional time to update their systems and processes.
Technologies Management, Inc. (TMI) will continue to track these developments for our clients and others in the telecom industry. Watch for TMI Regulatory Briefings regarding these and other regulatory changes.
I have provided a list of some of our recent Briefings on this topic to help you identify activity that may be important to you.
For more information, click here.