FCC votes to provide broadband access to low-income households under telephone subsidy programme

The Federal Communications Commission yesterday voted to cover broadband for low-income households under a telephone subsidy programme it had offered for 30 years.

Three of the five members of the FCC voted in favour of reforming the programme, called Lifeline, to include web access.

The Lifeline programme was established in 1985 to provide qualifying low-income US citizens with a $9.25 per month subsidy toward phone service.

The vote yesterday, expanded it to include broadband internet, although the final structure of what that might look like was yet to be determined.

The expansion of the programme still needs further government approval, where there was opposition to the proposed expansion. According to some critics, the $2-billion per year Lifeline programme was already rife with abuses and fraud - and the existing programme needed to be fixed before it was expanded, CNBC reported yesterday.

"We still have a long way to go if we are going to fix this program," Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai said in a report by the Hill. "Waste fraud and abuse are still rampant."

In a news release yesterday, however, the FCC indicated that abuses of Lifeline had largely been eliminated and that further reforms were being developed to ensure that the programme was helping the people it was supposed to help.

"It is time for a fundamental, comprehensive restructuring of the program to meet today's most pressing communications needs: access to broadband," the FCC said in a statement. "Broadband has become essential to participation in modern society, offering access to jobs, education, health care, government services and opportunity. Unfortunately, income remains a significant barrier to broadband adoption."

According to commentators, the decision highlighted the FCC's fast-growing role in regulating broadband.

Lifeline recipients could earlier use the funds to buy telephone or cellphone service, although they could apply the subsidy toward internet access only if it came bundled with telephone or cellphone service. The FCC's decision clears the deck towards including standalone internet plans that were not tied to voice packages in the programme.

With the rest of the economy having come to rely more on the internet, FCC officials said, ensuring equality of internet access was an important priority.

''Today begins a proceeding to spend ratepayers' money more wisely, to deliver 21st-century benefits to deserving recipients, and to get to the heart of the historic issues that have haunted this program's efficiency,'' said FCC chairman Tom Wheeler.