Lifeline Provider Representatives Press Pai, Carr, Bureau for National Verifier API
Lifeline national verifier application programming interfaces would ease consumer enrollments, said Judson Hill, adviser to TrueConnect and Telrite and ex-state senator in Georgia. Absent APIs, potential Lifeline users "must learn and self-navigate the eligibility verification process without assistance before then…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
repeating the same process with a Carrier, often through an independent sales agent, who must collect the same information and again verify eligibility," he wrote on a meeting with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Brendan Carr and aides, posted Tuesday in docket 17-287. "This process creates more opportunities for fraud and abuse" and may be so challenging that it discourages "many otherwise eligible people" from enrolling. Hill suggested "conduct-based requirements" for Lifeline resellers, rather than the FCC's proposed ban, "plus more accountability for independent sales agents." The National Lifeline Association pressed Wireline Bureau staffers on ordering Universal Service Administrative Co. to implement a verifier API and to secure access to eligibility databases before hard launches in states. It urged FCC reconsideration of USAC's current verification process coinciding with state launches, which otherwise "will result in the de-enrollment of millions of eligible subscribers from an already shrinking Lifeline program." It opposed the proposed reseller ban and said the FCC should reverse a scheduled phaseout of support for "essential voice service" beginning Dec. 1, 2019. Also meeting with staffers, CTIA discussed possible API deployment that can "enable efficient verification for eligible low-income consumers and safeguard program integrity."