Idaho Suspends State Lifeline Fee, Keeps TRS Surcharge
The Idaho Public Utilities Commission suspended for the third straight year a surcharge funding the Idaho Telecommunications Service Assistance Program (ITSAP), which provides a $2.50 monthly discount on landline and cellphone service for the poor, the PUC said last week.…
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Monthly participation in ITSAP fell, on average, to 1,787 in 2018 from 27,539 in 2010, the PUC said. The number of recipients declined 30 percent from 2017 to 2018, it said. Also, the PUC left unchanged the funding mechanism for the state telecommunications relay service program, which is 2 cents per month on residential and business lines, plus .0002 cent per minute on intrastate calls. TRS usage is declining due to wireless texting and similar internet-based services, the commission said. The relay center handled 10,698 minutes of traffic in 2018, 12 percent less than the year before, it said.