TracFone's Consumer-Oriented Wireless Proposal

TracFone has a proposal to give consumers enrolled in wireless Lifeline services more choice in using their Lifeline benefit. TracFone proposes that LifeLine providers be permitted to meet the  FCC's minimum service standards through what it calls a "units" plan. Under the proposal, consumers would receive 1,000 units per month. According to the proposal, “A unit would be either one minute of wireless voice service or 1 MB of mobile broadband service.” In other words, the carrier said it "would provide consumers with up to 1,000 minutes of mobile voice service ... or up to 1 GB of mobile broadband data.”

This seems like a sensible way to give Lifeline customers more flexibility to decide how best to meet their own needs, while still maintaining the Commission's minimum service standards.

There doesn't seem to be a good reason to presume that Lifeline customers can't determine themselves how to use the quantity of service available to them under their Lifeline plan.