Before I got on the line with Tony Rom from The Washington Post, I looked up my cell phone

bill.

It went to the AT&T website, downloaded the PDF, and went through it, line by line.

And underneath the monthly charge and the various taxes, there was this one line with

a small fee for $1.85.

That is an amount of money that you are paying that helps subsidize this very big historic

program that the U.S. has had in place for many years now to help people who can't get

online in a four-of-phone service in the way that you and I and perhaps some of your listeners

can.

That program, the Universal Service Fund, pays for a bunch of things, including moral healthcare

technology and internet access for some schools, and a special program called Lifeline.

Lifeline is a digital safety net that is supposed to help low-income Americans get phone

and internet service.

What Lifeline does essentially is it gives a monthly stipend to people, it's $9.25 or

so, and that stipend will subsidize their phone connectivity.

There's just one problem.

And it's that Lifeline plans kind of suck.

The telecom companies market specific plans for Lifeline customers, but the speed and data

limits are poultry.

Plus, the program itself is riddled with problems.

Many of the people who are eligible aren't even able to sign up, leaving Americans who

desperately need to connect simply unable to do it.

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