The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB or Bureau), in a Public Notice, announced the new speed and usage standards for the Lifeline-supported services, effective December 1, 2019, as required by the 2016 Lifeline Order. The Bureau also announced the Lifeline program budget for federal universal service support, for the 2020 calendar year, will be $2,385,292,106.
For fixed broadband, the minimum service standard speed will be 20 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream and the minimum service standard usage will be 1024 GB per month. For mobile broadband, the minimum service standard speed remains 3G mobile technology, while the minimum service standard for usage will increase to 8.75 GB per month. Additionally, for mobile voice services, the minimum standard will remain unchanged at 1,000 minutes per month.
