from WGRZ TV (Buffalo, NY) ----- Safelink Wirless and Tracfone are rolling out a new offer in New York that could mean free cell phones for low-income families. The phones come with
68 minutes of airtime a month, along with voicemail, caller ID, call waiting, and text messaging.
The program is supported by the federal government, but it isn't exactly tax dollars footing the bill. Instead, many cellular customers are paying for it.
Cell phone companies must contribute to the Federal Communication Commission's Universal Service Fund. ... Once that money is collected, the federal government subsidizes the Lifeline phones by paying $10 per phone/per month from the fund ... rest:
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may be power, but communications is the key snipped-for-privacy@panix.com [to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]