Lifeline
The FCC's Lifeline Assistance Program lowers the cost of local telephone service for qualified low income families in the United States. Lifeline assistance offers all eligible low-income consumers the following services: voice grade access to the public switched network; Dual Tone Multi-frequency; single-party service or its functional equivalent; access to emergency services; access to operator services; access to interexchange service; access to directory assistance; access to operator services; and toll blocking free of charge.

Enhanced Lifeline assistance is also available to low income customers living on Indian reservations. Those who qualify will pay $1.00 per month for the basic local service portion of their telephone bill. Taxes, Universal Service Fund and TDD service fees, 911 surcharges, long distance and enhanced feature charges are not discounted.

Link Up America
The FCC's Link Up America Assistance Program lowers the cost of getting hooked up to your local telephone company. This program is administered by the Universal Service Administration Company and uses monies collected from the Universal Service Fund Fee to subsidize low income individuals and families for up to 50% of the cost of putting in telephone service (up to $30.00).

Enhanced Linkup America is a low income program available to customers living on Indian reservations. The Enhanced Link Up America Assistance Program provides for an additional discount (up to $70.00) on new telephone service connection charges. Eligible connection charges include outside construction charges associated with the initiation of basic telephone service.

For more information on these low income programs visit the Universal Service Administration Company web site at www.universalservice.org/li/ , the NASUCA Lifeline Link Up web site at www.lifeline.gov, call our office at 1-800-332-1201 or view our Keeping Montanans Connected brochure.