SALT LAKE CITY — A couple of cell phone companies want to join providers that are offering subsidized basic phone service to low-income Utahns. But advocates for poor families say officials should examine first how well the Lifeline program already serves the poor and if proposed changes would help or hurt them.
Lifeline offers telephone service to those who might not otherwise afford it — in Utah, primarily through a land line with Qwest as the largest provider. Qwest Lifeline customers, for instance, receive basic household phone service but their bill is cut by about $13.50, courtesy of a federal-state subsidy.
That phone service is more than adequate, said Tim Funk, Crossroads Urban Center, but poorly advertised. Fewer than one-fourth of eligible Utahns are enrolled.
Now TracFone wants to become an "eligible telecommunication carrier," providing a refurbished cell phone and 67 minutes a month talk time for the subsidy. Customers would have to buy 100 more minutes at 20 cents each, according to the TracFone website. Anything else, including long distance, would cost extra. TracFone is a provider in 13 states.
Critics, including Funk, say 67 minutes is too little. They predict many customers will owe more than if they stuck with existing providers.
"The primary concept behind Lifeline is that it is established as a basic, low-cost telephone service for low-income users who could not afford it otherwise. The real potential for increasingly higher costs with the TracFone proposal nullifies this," Funk wrote in a letter to the commissioners of the Utah Public Services Commission. It will hold a hearing on TracFone's request Monday at 160 E. 300 South. Public comment will be taken from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m.
Virgin, another cell phone company, also hopes to serve Lifeline customers, but no hearing has been slated yet. It would provide 200 minutes a month and sell additional time at 10 cents a minute.
Crossroads Urban Center has asked the Utah Division of Public Utilities not to act on the cell provider request until it holds a "generic hearing" on telecommunication needs of low-income Utahns, the effectiveness of the existing program and other issues.
Because a Lifeline customer must choose one provider—home or cell—Funk fears a strong advertising campaign might lure the poor away from choosing the unlimited-minutes basic phone service now offered. Studies show, he said, that the average homeless individual needs about 300 minutes of telephone time a month to deal with basics. Some poor families need more. Under Virgin's more generous proposal, the customer who needed 300 minutes would come out about even with the existing Lifeline program, Funk said. Those who need more minutes could go over, as well.
In response to a request for a separate hearing, division director Philip Powlick said state agencies are limited in making fundamental Lifeline changes to issues of an individual's or telecomm company's eligibility. He encouraged Glenn Bailey, Crossroads Urban Center director, to attend Monday's hearing to see if that resolved some of the group's concerns.
e-mail: lois@desnews.com