In his speech on Monday, Federal Communications Commissions’ (FCC ) Chairman, Julius Genachowski has said that he had draft a proposal which would create an initiative that would help provides affordable telephone service for people that are low-income earners in the U.S., including broadband internet service.
Genachowski said that “the program is out dated, focused on phone service when high-speed Internet has become our vital communications platform.”
Genachowski claims that the program which many believes to be a Lifeline for people and will help provide discounts on monthly phone bills for those are low-income earners in the state, has been successful before but was plagued by challenges of accountability and efficiency.
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On the issue of multiple service providers that are often claimed on the lifeline subsidies for same households due to lack of centralized system. In order to correct this, he made mention of the notion that they will create a national database of Lifeline subscribers to prevent duplicate billing.
Genachowski said “the order would make Lifeline reimbursement more transparent and streamlined,” and he called the measure a common sense. Genachowski said that Federal Communications Commissions’ staffs evaluate that the transformations will save the fund $2 billion for the next two years to come.
However, he also called for companies that are participating to be a subject to independent audits for the next two years.
The FCC chairman said that Federal Communications would work with the existing broadband approved programs in order to establish its own initial program using savings from its budget changes.
Genachowski also confirmed it that the program which is in development stage will be “modernized to meet the needs of low-income Americans in a broadband world” and is in accordance to other efforts of the agency’s efforts on broadband adoption.
The Lifeline program is proudly supported by the Universal Service Fund – the body which was created with the purpose of connecting all Americans to the telecommunications infrastructure.
Tobi Bamidele works for ProComputerTech and LatestTopJobs as guest blogger and promoter. He writes about gadgets, technology, internet connection and many more tech related news and updates. You can get in touch with him on Facebook with his name.
[image by freedigitalphotos]
