Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Assurance Wireless, a Virgin Mobile company using Sprint's cell tower network, is a local provider of the FCC and CPUC's Lifeline service for cellphones. The problem is their service for their Kyocera cellphones is incomplete in East Palo Alto, where a high concentration and percentage of Lifeline qualifying households live. Assurance Wireless is promoted by the County of San Mateo's Human Services Agency, DSBE, and a number of local NGOs, including the Salvation Army and Project WeHope. DSBE's efforts to work with Assurance Wireless and Sprint to fulfill their Federal obligations have come up against denials by Sprint of any problems in its service coverage despite their being areas in East Palo Alto where Assurance Wireless' Kyocera cellphones do not work (the Salvation Army's offices along with those of the County's Human Services Agency, for example.) Exhausting its meager resources, DSBE turns to its County, State, and National levels of representation to use their influence to compel Assurance Wireless to fulfill its obligations to the Federal Lifeline program, for which it has doubtlessly been accepting money in consideration of its contract. |