Lifeline and Link Up Available in Louisiana and Arkansas

Lifeline and Link Up are two programs designed to provide discounts on telephone service for qualifying low-income families.

The Lifeline program provides discounts on monthly telephone charges, and Link Up provides a discount on the cost of commencing telephone service for qualifying low-income households. Lifeline and Link Up are supported by the federal Universal Service Fund. The Federal Communications Commission, with the help of the Universal Service Administrative Company, administers the USF.

All telecommunications service providers and certain other providers of telecommunications must contribute to the federal USF based on a percentage of their end-user telecommunications earnings. These companies include wireline telephone companies, wireless telephone companies, paging service companies and certain Voice over Internet Protocol providers.

The whole appear as a percentage of a consumer'

These charges on the whole appear as a percentage of a consumer's telephone bill. Companies that choose to collect Universal Service fees from their clients cannot collect an amount that exceeds their contribution to the USF. They as well cannot collect from a Lifeline program participant USF fees on any services supported by universal service.

Some consumers may notice a "Universal Service" line item on their telephone bills. This line item appears when a company chooses to recover its USF contributions directly from its clients by billing them this charge. The FCC does not require this charge to be passed on to clients. Each company makes a business decision about whether and how to assess charges to recover its Universal Service costs.

A caveat: U.S. Government rules prohibit qualifying low-income consumers from receiving more than ONE Lifeline discount together. If you are receiving more than one monthly Lifeline service, you should contact the telephone company that you do not want as your Lifeline provider to de-enroll from the program so you are left with a single Lifeline provider. Consumers found to be violating this rule may as well be subject to criminal and/or civil penalties.