The FCC banned one of the largest recipients of federal Lifeline subsidies from enrolling new Lifeline subscribers. IM Telecom apparently violated its Lifeline compliance plan and the Lifeline program rules by: (1) transferring thousands of former subscribers back to IM Telecom without their consent; (2) creating a payment scheme to evade the FCC’s non-usage rules; (3) failing to obtain affirmative consent from subscribers before enrolling or transferring them to IM Telecom; (4) changing corporate control without obtaining required federal approvals; and (5) using bots to evade limits previously imposed on IM Telecom’s application, enrollment, and customer transfer activity
IM Telecom must provide the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) with information that allows USAC to perform subscriber updates and de-enrollments in the Lifeline program’s National Lifeline Accountability Database for the relevant subscribers.
