government phone

government phone

The Impact of Government Phone Programs on Society

1. Introduction to Government Phone Programs

The need for wireless service by the poor has increased due to the following. Federal, state, and local departments are reaching out to the poor with their health care, workforce, welfare, sales tax, and communication programs. The use of wireless telephones has gone up with the decrease in wireline telephones. More individuals are living in multiple-family units or shared residences that have more than one household or multiple people using the same telephone. When living with multiple people to a phone without privacy to make or get a call, the ability to negotiate services and programs, have private conversations, and access government and community programs is decreased. Governments are using telephone numbers to contact individuals. Unemployment agencies use the phone to clarify unemployment claims. Individuals use the phone to request help in crisis situations. Multiple people use a phone to access different government and community programs. People should have access to a phone to keep lines open for those in need of help and share a phone to access the programs and services in their community.

A government phone program is an initiative to provide non-landline telephone service to the poor. Currently, programs use funds collected from telephone customers by telephone companies. The service provided is wireless, giving poor communities a new type of telephone service. Government phone services give the poor the ability to request help in an emergency, better negotiate and access government programs, negotiate and access community non-profit programs, negotiate and access commercial programs, and make it easier and cheaper to reconnect with family and friends. The digital divide has the potential to inhibit the poor’s ability to live better, more productive lives. As more of the federal and state government services digitalize and go online, the poor find that they cannot afford this wireless technology to access these services.

2. Benefits of Government Phone Programs

For our country to strive, it is crucial that everyone has the basic means of living to be able to access jobs, doctors, or family and whatever other social means are necessary in everyday life. This includes a cell phone. If these people are able to access a phone, then they have the potential to perform any of life’s necessary functions. Providing free phone programs to the low-income is a way for governments to give back to their citizens, to do a bit of good in one small area of need for a struggling family or individual. They cannot provide a free service for everything, but they can provide it in some areas while making sure their citizens are all taken care of. With the installation of these free cell phone services, it will have nothing but a beneficial impact.

With every good thing, come people trying to take advantage of it. This is also the case with the many benefits provided by the state government to those struggling financially, especially in the area of free cell phones. One may wonder if these benefits are really necessary and if they indeed have a reason to be available to all that want them. For one, there are so many who do not have the money to be able to buy a phone, no matter how cheap it has become. In the fast-paced world we live in today, and with the coming of so many other technological advances, the cell phone has become a means of communication.

3. Challenges and Criticisms

The major categories of criticisms that have been advanced include: (1) general criticisms of government programs; (2) general criticisms of government programs that are based on the affiliation of the recipient groups; (3) general criticisms of telecommunications programs, highlighting the specific features of telecommunications that may make them different from other consumer goods; and finally (4) specific criticisms of the Lifeline program itself. In presenting these criticisms, we will do so in the most strident manner possible and suggest that for each criticism, a nontrivial issue is raised that must be possible to resolve for a government-mandated phone program to be an equitable success.

Many groups have raised numerous practical and theoretical issues about government programs in general. Many others have raised specific issues regarding the Lifeline program, as currently implemented by the FCC and the states. This section will attempt to provide a brief summary of some of these issues and how they have played out to date in the debate surrounding the Lifeline program.

4. Case Studies of Successful Government Phone Programs

This chapter describes several state programs and analyzes the data which contradicts each radio message – both assertions with respect to state programs and islander Telecabin; chronicling the beneficial experiences of the deaf users of the communication system supports the decision of the telecommuter. These examples are part of several others available to the committees. In the following pages, we will focus on the results of the Tress Hutchins, the Director of the Indiana Demonstration Program. She summarized the successes of the program and emphasized the importance of personal choice and competition in delivering the best product. Tress Hutchins testified that as of March 1986, 144 people were using Communication Assistance, 273 callers had been supplied, and 7 providers were delivering the service.

The committees took testimony from representatives of successful government programs located in California, Indiana, New York, and Vermont. In each of these states, the government sponsors a toll-free telephone identification program enabling elderly and handicapped individuals to make calls without assistance. The services and types of users differ dramatically from program to program, but all are supported by a combination of state, local, public, and private revenues and have fostered the creation of jobs. The success stories outlined directly contradict the Collectives’ assumptions that social chaos and ill-conceived programs are the necessary and natural consequence of federal participation.

5. Future Directions and Recommendations

Since these alternatives could lead to overconsumption, we call for some type of means test to qualify households for this service. A program to increase the means test-capabilities of the states and the plan providers is also needed. Program studies should elicit respondents’ input, measuring, among other factors, the satisfaction levels of telephone program participants, paying particular attention to those who have changed from prepay to Lifeline/bill and Cos who have lost Program benefits. It is especially important to highlight the advantages of the linkage sessions for those participants. The above-mentioned co-factors should be used to select samples for these studies, which should assess which variables impact usage and which affect satisfaction with telephone service. By tracking subscribers over time, program analyses could supply more generalized findings about the impact of telephone service.

We hypothesize that more effective dissemination of information about the programs and their impact on poor households should increase awareness and use of Lifeline, leading to the attainment of program objectives. Given the connection between program benefits and subscriber use, it is critical that the Lifeline work group’s recommendations regarding clarifying benefits and services be accepted and that the modifier “discount” be replaced with the agreed-upon term “reduction.” Critical questions not addressed in this paper are how many services should be mandated and how they could be covered by the reduction in service charges. A solution may be to separate the service charges from the equipment charges and exempt the reduction from service charges from Universal Service assessments. We also explore the possibility of having a flat fee service.