TracFone says Philly refuses its free mobile phones for the poor
TracFone Wireless of Miami says Philadelphia city government won't allow it to give free mobile phones to the poor, under a federally-subsidized program.
Pay-as-you-go mobile-phone vendor TracFone Wireless Inc., Miami, says Philadelphia and Bucks County have turned down its attempt to give free, government-subsidized mobile phones to poor people.
TracFone says its SafeLink wireless service is subsidized by a federal program that, in Pennsylvania, pays phone companies $8.25 per low-income customer per month, in hopes of expanding access to 911 emergency services and other basic needs. Some carriers use the program to offer cut-rate service to qualified callers; TracFone offers a free phone, plus 42 minutes of free use each month, in hopes they'll buy additional minutes.
To participate, the phone has to be approved by local 911 emergency phone service coordinators in each market, TracFone lobbyist Jose Fuentes told me. He says Florida, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia, Atlanta, New York City, and Allegheney, Chester and Montgomery Counties, among other places, have approved SafeLink. But Philadelphia and Bucks turned it down, as did the counties including Allentown, Bethlehem and Reading. Delaware County is testing the phones, Fuentes added.
In Philadelphia, "they told us they were concerned they'd get sued. Which is ridiculous. They have... other cell phone carriers that have this program," Fuentes told me. Philadelphia 911 director Frank Punzo and his Bucks County counterpart, Peter Ference, weren't available when I called them to get the governments' side.