FCC Advisory on Lifeline Usage Rule 

The FCC’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued an Advisory alerting Lifeline carriers, beneficiaries, and the public about carrier failures to comply with the Lifeline program usage rule.  The rule applies when an eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) offers Lifeline service that does not require it to assess and collect a monthly fee from its subscribers. It specifies that an ETCs can only receive universal service support reimbursement for Lifeline service provided to subscribers who have used the service within the last 30 days, or who have cured their non-usage in accordance with FCC rules. 

The Advisory provides examples of usage rule violations the OIG has encountered in its ongoing investigations of Lifeline carriers, including reimbursements sought for subscriber accounts that have never had any qualifying usage.  Other examples of usage rule violations include treating the following as qualifying usage: incoming texts to subscribers; incoming voicemails to subscribers; and data use not generated by the subscriber.   

OIG reminds all Lifeline ETCs to carefully scrutinize their usage monitoring and de-enrollment practices to ensure compliance with program rules.  If ETCs discover usage problems, OIG reminds carriers of their obligation to take appropriate remedial measures, including amending past 497 filings and de-enrolling affected subscribers.  ETCs who defraud the USF by violating the program’s usage rule will be held accountable and may be subject to civil or criminal sanctions. 

Inspector General David L. Hunt said, “Our office is committed to using every tool at our disposal to fight fraud, waste, and abuse in the Lifeline program. Advisories such as this play an important role in alerting program stakeholders that we will scrutinize carefully compliance with all program rules to identify and deter fraudulent practices.” 

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The Regulatory Mix Today:  FCC Advisory on Lifeline Usage Rule, DOJ Robocalling Lawsuits,  US House Moving Forward Framework 

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DOJ Robocalling Lawsuits 

The Department of Justice announced it filed civil actions for temporary restraining orders in two cases against five companies and three individuals allegedly responsible for carrying hundreds of millions of fraudulent robocalls to American consumers.  DOJ alleged that the companies were warned numerous times that they were carrying fraudulent robocalls — including government- and business-imposter calls — and yet continued to carry those calls and facilitate foreign-based fraud schemes targeting Americans.  The calls, most of which originated in India, led to massive financial losses to elderly and vulnerable victims across the nation. 

DOJ alleges that the defendants operated VoIP carriers to carry their calls and that numerous foreign-based criminal organizations used their VoIP carrier services to pass fraudulent government- and business-imposter fraud robocalls to American victims.   The complaints filed in the cases specifically allege that defendants served as “gateway carriers,” making them the entry point for foreign-initiated calls into the U.S. telecommunications system. According to DOJ, the defendants carried an “astronomical numbers of robocalls.”  For example, the complaint against the owners/operators of Ecommerce National d/b/a TollFreeDeals.com alleges that the defendants carried 720 million calls during a sample 23-day period, and that more than 425 million of those calls lasted less than one second, indicating that they were robocalls.  The complaint further alleges that many of the 720 million calls were fraudulent and used spoofed (i.e., fake) caller ID numbers.The calls facilitated by the defendants falsely threatened victims with a variety of catastrophic government actions, including termination of social security benefits, imminent arrest for alleged tax fraud and deportation for supposed failure to fill out immigration forms correctly.  According to allegations in both complaints, the defendants ignored repeated red flags and warnings about the fraudulent and unlawful nature of the calls they were carrying. 

The defendants in one case are Ecommerce National LLC d/b/a TollFreeDeals.com; SIP Retail d/b/a sipretail.com; and their owner/operators, Nicholas Palumbo and Natasha Palumbo  of Scottsdale, Arizona.  The defendants in the other case include Global Voicecom Inc., Global Telecommunication Services Inc., KAT Telecom Inc., aka IP Dish, and their owner/operator, Jon Kahen of Great Neck, New York. 

US House Moving Forward Framework 

Chairs of three U.S. House Committees released a framework for a five-year, $760 billion investment in infrastructure that would address some of the country’s most urgent infrastructure needs.  The framework put forth by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ), and Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal (D-MA) would bolster the Federal role in order to help communities around the country undertake transformative projects that are smarter, safer, and made to last.   Among other things, the framework outlines major investments, including those in surface transportation, rail and transit systems, airports, ports and harbors, wastewater and drinking water infrastructure, brownfields, and broadband.   Specifically, the framework proposes: 

• A $86 Billion investment in expanding broadband access to unserved and underserved rural, suburban, and urban communities across the country – connecting Americans, creating strong small businesses, more jobs and strengthening economies in communities that have been left behind.   
• A $12 Billion investment to fund implementation of a Next Generation 9-1-1 system that will allow people to call or send texts, images or videos to 9-1-1 to help first responders and emergency personnel better asses the nature of an emergency and reach people in need.  

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The Regulatory Mix, Inteserra’s blog of telecom related regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of an Inteserra Briefing.