The Federal Communications Commission continues to dole out fines related to abuses of the government-subsidized Lifeline Program, this time targeting Budget Mobile.
The FCC noted that Budget “willfully and repeatedly violated Sections 54.407, 54.409, and 54.410 of the commission’s rules by requesting and/or receiving support from the Lifeline program of the Universal Service Fund … for ineligible subscriber lines for the months of February through April 2013.” For the apparent violations, the FCC said it would fine Budget more than $3.7 million.
The FCC noted that its Lifeline rules state that eligible customers may not already be receiving Lifeline services, requiring a carrier offering the service to make sure such violations don’t occur. Budget, which is based in Louisiana, offers Lifeline-related services in Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Wisconsin.
The FCC found that Budget had 691 individual “duplicates lines” for which the company sought reimbursement from the Lifeline program. The FCC noted the requested reimbursement totaled just $8,300, but that it can fine a company in violation of the rules up to $150,000 for each violation or each day of a continuing violation, up to a statutory maximum of $1.5 million for a single act or failure to act. In handing out the Budget fine, the FCC claimed “$240,000 for the submission of the FCC form 497s that included the ineligible intra-company duplicate subscribers in the line counts;” “a base forfeiture of $3,455,000 based on the 691 individual intra-company duplicate lines for which Budget requested and/or received compensation from the fund;” and “an upward adjustment of $24,900, which is three-times the amount of support Budget requested and/or received for ineligible consumers.”
The FCC late last year fined eight operators for Lifeline violations, including Conexions Wireless, I-wireless, True Wireless, TracFone Wireless, Assist Wireless, Easy Wireless, Icon Telecom and UTPhone. Those fines totaled $47 million.
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.
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