The Federal Communications Commission has proposed fining a trio of wireless operators nearly $33 million in penalties connected to violating rules of the government’s Lifeline program.
The FCC explained that Conexions Wireless, I-wireless and True Wireless violated rules limiting Lifeline connections to one account per household, thus receiving payments for “thousands of consumers that already were obtaining Lifeline service from the same company.” The FCC explained that each operator knew or should have known based on internal data that the “consumers were ineligible because they were already receiving service from that carrier.”
“This duplicate support is expressly prohibited by federal law,” the FCC noted in its ruling.
Conexions was fined $18.4 million for violating the rules over an eight-month period in Arkansas, Maryland, and West Virginia; I-Wireless was fined $8.8 million for violating rules over a seven-month period in Ohio, Illinois, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, New York, Indiana, and South Carolina; and True Wireless was fined $5.5 million for violating rules over an eight-month period in Arkansas, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Texas. The FCC added that it was proposing an additional $300,000 fine against Conexions for not providing requested information to the FCC in a timely manner.
The FCC added that the proposed fines were in addition to “full recovery of the universal service funds paid to the carriers for duplicative Lifeline service.”
The FCC last month fined five carriers a total of $14 million for violating Lineline rules, including TracFone Wireless, Assist Wireless, Easy Wireless, Icon Telecom and UTPhone.
The Lifeline program was started in 1985 and is the part of the universal-service program aimed at providing low-income consumers access to telecommunications. Most wireless offerings provide for around 250 calling minutes and a limited number of text messages for free. More than two million customers have been found to be ineligible for Lifeline services, with carriers having to re-adjust their customer counting results to take into account the required disconnects.
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