Boomerang Seeks FCC Delay of Its LBP Revocation, Citing Disruption to Customers
Boomerang Wireless asked the FCC to delay revoking its Lifeline broadband status until the agency or state regulators act on its long-pending petitions to become a USF-eligible telecom carrier (ETC) in numerous states. Boomerang said de-enrolling 17,538 affected Lifeline subscribers under the Wireline Bureau's Feb. 3 Lifeline broadband provider revocation order would be disruptive despite a 60-day transition given the company to migrate the customers to rivals. Some other providers criticized the FCC decision to revoke the LBP designations of nine companies, including Boomerang, pending further review (see 1702030070).
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Meanwhile, a court put a hold on a challenge to the FCC creation of an LBP process in 2016; and Mark Jamison, who was a member of Donald Trump's presidential transition team, suggested ending Lifeline and shifting related low-income subsidies to other federal programs. It's time to get phone companies and regulators "out of the business of public assistance, leaving it to government agencies that are designed to be experts in the field," he said.
Boomerang said it's designated as an ETC in 31 states and has petitions pending for 17 states, including through a petition at the FCC for 11 states that don't designate wireless ETCs. The federal ETC petition has been pending for six years (it was updated in 2012), and the state petitions have also been pending for years, said a Boomerang filing posted Thursday in docket 09-197 on a meeting with aides to Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Mignon Clyburn, acting General Counsel Brendan Carr and other staffers. Though Boomerang didn't advocate for the national LBP process the FCC created in 2016, the company said, it pursued an LBP designation to streamline its approvals, and the bureau granted its petition Dec. 1.
Boomerang acquired Lifeline subscribers from other providers in two 2016 deals, including from Total Call Mobile "due to that company's ongoing investigation and impending exit from the Lifeline business," Boomerang said. It said it worked closely with the bureau to develop a vetting process for subscribers, who were immediately transferred to Boomerang in states where it was an ETC, and after the Dec. 1 LBP approval in states where it was not. It said it has 17,538 customers pursuant to the LBP designation.
The Feb. 3 order requires Boomerang to notify those customers by March 5 "that they have 30 days to find another Lifeline service provider or be de-enrolled," the provider said. "These customers do not have $9.25 each month to pay for their wireless service and anyway, Boomerang cannot build a method for them to pay each month in 30 days. ... The vast majority of these more than 17,000 subscribers are unlikely to find an alternative Lifeline provider in 30 days."
Boomerang asked the FCC to delay its LBP revocation's effective date in states until either a state or the FCC grants its ETC designation, or the state or FCC denies its ETC designation. Such action "would more effectively minimize disruption to Boomerang’s impacted Lifeline subscribers," it said. The FCC didn't comment Thursday. A Feb. 7 Pai blog post defended the bureau order, including the Boomerang 60-day delay (see 1702070062).
The bureau order was criticized by two other providers: Northland Cable Ventures, which lost its designation, and SHOIT Inc., which has an application pending. The bureau's "overarching rationale" that it was guarding against waste, fraud and abuse "is not rational," said a Northland filing on a meeting with Pai and Clyburn aides. The filing said the bureau cited only one case where a provider admitted violating rules, plus Pai's general concerns about other unnamed ETCs. "Yet Chairman Pai has recognized that he has not uncovered evidence of fraud with respect to these other ETCs after many months of reviewing the enrollment data of multiple Lifeline ETCs," it said, citing various program safeguards and other criticisms of the Feb. 3 order.
A federal court granted the FCC's unopposed motion to hold in abeyance challenges to the agency's 2016 decisions creating the LBP process. In an order (in Pacer) Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit directed litigants to file motions governing further proceedings by May 17 in NARUC v. FCC, No. 16-1170. The FCC sought the hold to give its new leadership time to decide on its regulatory course (see 1702060060).
Lifeline's low-income telecom subsidies are inefficient and could be transferred to other federal programs, said Jamison, who also is director of the University of Florida's Public Utility Research Center. He said research shows Lifeline does little to make service more affordable for low-income consumers, since many would have mobile service anyway, though it does give households more disposable income to buy unsubsidized services such as cable TV. In addition, Lifeline providers appear to be the big beneficiaries, he said in a blog post. "There is a better way -- a direct subsidy would be more beneficial to low-income households." Citing Supplemental Security Income, Section 8 housing and food-stamp programs, he asked: "Why not simply give low-income households more money through one of these programs?”
“You only need to know two things about this blog post," emailed Andrew Schwartzman, Georgetown Law Institute for Public Representation senior counselor: "Everything it says is wrong" and "its author headed the Trump transition team for the FCC." Jamison was one of the two original team members.