California LifeLine Program Update Low Income Oversight Board February 27, 2013 California LifeLine Program Updates CA LifeLine All Party Meeting – January 29, 2013 Third Party Administrator Transition Catch-up Renewal Forms Invalid Service Addresses Implementation of Requirement – SSN/DOB Compliance Requirements – FCC 12-11 Image Exchange Process Opt Out – National Duplicates Database 2 Direct Application Process Commission mandated a process to facilitate a faster enrollment process for CA LifeLine Applicants (Resolution T-17366) in July 2012. Communications Division and the Third Party Administrator (Xerox) were given until November 1 to implement a process that allowed potential applicants direct contact with Xerox to circumvent the delays associated with mailing an application form back and forth. Xerox proposed a number of solutions, and worked with the pilot team of carriers (Cricket, Nexus, Telscape Wireless and TC Telephone) to test and implement a solution. 3 Direct Application Process - continued The DAP allows for point-of-sale, real-time applications Applicants can be offered LifeLine benefits at the same time they sign up for instore service The carrier employee submits the applicant’s basic information (name, address, phone number) to Xerox in a meta-data file. The Xerox database does a real-time check to ensure the applicant does not already have a LifeLine subsidy with another carrier. If the applicant passes the duplicates check, an application form is emailed back to the carrier with the basic applicant information already filled in. This usually takes less than 60 seconds. The applicant can either take the form home, fill it out and mail it back, or they can bring their supporting documentation back to the store and the carrier would email the completed package to Xerox. 4 Direct Application Process - continued Current statistics for the DAP program to date: A total of 5,141 transaction. Of those: 3,484 application requests 1,252 approved for LifeLine 2,056 pending a decision 578 correctible denials sent 144 denials 32 disconnected The balance of the transactions are customer transfers or reconnections Cricket is the only carrier currently using DAP. Nexus hopes to be fully in production within 2-4 weeks TC Telephone plans to implement DAP within 30 days Telscape is pending on an IT review Virgin Mobile (Assurance) is reviewing the Specifications Document 5 Enhanced Lifeline According to USAC, there were an average of 615 tribal Lifeline customers in California in 2012 Communications Division is finalizing a Specifications Document that will allow LifeLine customers living on federally recognized tribal land to certify for the additional benefits by simply filling in a bubble on the form. 6 Contact Information Benjamin Schein – LifeLine Implementation BDA@cpuc.ca.gov; (415) 703-1088 Michaela Pangilinan – LifeLine Outreach WOW@cpuc.ca.gov; (415) 703-1890 RHA, Inc. (Outreach Contractor) – Vanessa Anderson vanderson@rhainc.com; (559) 447-7000 Consumer Affairs Branch http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/puc/cec/e_complaint/; (800) 649-7570 Xerox State and Local Solutions, Inc. (LifeLine Public Call Center) https://www.californialifeline.com/en (866) 272-0349 – English (866) 272-0354 – Korean (866) 272-0350 – Spanish (866) 272-0355 – Vietnamese (866) 272-0351 – Lao/Hmong (866) 272-0356 – Chinese (866) 272-0352 – Khmer (866) 296-0860 – Japanese (866) 272-0353 – Tagalog 7