FREE Cell Phone via Government

Lifeline Assistance is part of a program that was created by the government to provide discounted or free telephone service to income-eligible consumers. Service does not cost anything – there are no contracts, no recurring fees and no monthly charges.

Safe Link Wirless - FREE!

1.) Free Cellular Service
2.) Free Cell Phone
3.) Free Minutes (every month)
4.) Free Roll Over Minutes

Comes with caller ID, call waiting and voice mail.

https://www.safelinkwireless.com/Enr...blic/home.aspx

Thanks for sharing the info, it's not available in my area. I think it's a great resource though.

(( Rhap ))) its great idea ...I did not read the whole thing... I hope its fed funded so it will be every where...state by state thou is a start....everyone should have access to a phone great post ((ty))

Its not widely available yet. its only available in certain parts of Alabama, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

Free is great but alot of times free means sacrificing quality. with these phones they cut out, lose your calls and you have lots of dead zones when you are in the mountains or in a Valley surrounded by mountains. reception in the citys is ok because they have more cell towers.

Not in my area either....maybe in the future!

Its offered in my area but I wonder when I see the word free lol

Lets see, Free, Government funded.....taxes are paying for it, so it isn't free.....someone is paying for it!!!!.....not going into the politic thing here but look at the national debt.......it would take years of not spending anything to ever catch up......

Free is not Free!!!!

Ok - can we please try not to put down some thing that was created for families that cannot afford a phone and have young children at home or for people that are old and might need medical help when no one is around.... that which these funds are set up for.

I know a mother of three and she has one of these phone (as she cannot afford a phone and feed her children at the same time) - she works twelve hours shifts and this FREE PHONE helps her keep in touch with the babysitter when she is at work and her children are sick or have been hurt.

Lets look at the silver lining in this program and thank the government for helping those in needs.... and yes, even if it means we the people fund it though our taxes - - - - remember the day may come when you your self might need tax funded assistance.

I totally understand the Lifeline assistance for a home phone, I’m on the fence about the Lifeline cable, but I’m sorry I cannot conceive of any logical reason that a cell phone is considered a necessity. They’re running out of money to help with heating assistance, I think those money’s would be better spent helping people with actual necessities food, shelter, power.

As for the argument for the elderly, I sat here for an hour trying to think of a single person I know over the age of 60 with a cell phone. I have a HUGE family, and a great deal of them are 65 or older and not a single person I know of that age would even use a cell phone. (Vision and hearing play a large role in this I believe)

I have no problem with tax dollars going to help the less fortunate with necessities, there but by the grace of God go I. I have to say, whether it’s PC or not, that I’m really irritated that they’re increasing my taxes, reducing my public safety services, reducing funding to schools and yet finding the money to fund luxuries.

FYI - ANY cell with a charge will call 911 for free. No service plan is necessary.

My mom got one just in case any of our phones got cut off and there was an emergency. It's a great idea and all you have to do is refill it's minutes free of charge.

I did six weeks of outpatient group therapy after my inpatient stay in May. Some of the patients had pay-as-you-go cell phone because that's all they could afford on the small amount of money they got to live off of. This outpatient program provided transportation and the drivers always phoned the patients before heading to their apartments to pick them up to make sure they were up and ready to be picked up. Phoenix is a big place.

I can't tell you how many patients would have benefited from something like this because they ran out of money buying food and such and couldn't afford to put additional minutes on their phones. These people are seriously mentally ill people who in spite of medication have serious symptoms and even have seizures. Some of them have no family or their families could not care less about them. So for them, this would be a blessing.

I had heard of this program before this thread, one of my co-workers already has this phone, she got it about 2 months ago. BUT to get it she had to cancel her Lifeline home phone first. This means while she’s at work or wherever she has a phone, but her kids are at home with a babysitter without the benefit of a phone in the house. We live in a very rural community and one of her small children has severe Type 1 diabetes.

Now my understanding of this program is that there are a limited number of minutes, extra minutes are available to purchase but how many people in this situation can afford to throw money away for extra minutes? This person has used all of her minutes with socializing and has been unable to call in sick to work in a timely fashion because of her lack of phone. What happens when someone drops their phone and breaks it?

I’m fully aware that this co-worker does is very irresponsible and does not represent all of the thousands of people that are eligible for this program. But I fear she represents too many. And if WE the tax payers are paying for this service, isn’t it also our responsibility to ensure that this money is spent on a necessity rather than a luxury item?

I look at it this way: we don’t allow people to use food stamps to buy anything other than food. Things like diapers, cleaning supplies, and hygiene supplies ARE necessities but not allowed. There’s a reason the program was set up this way.

As I said before, there are many things that people in need actually NEED more than a cell phone. If the government came out and said they were going to take all of the cars that were traded in on the cash for clunker programs, make sure they were in good working condition and disperse them to needy people in rural areas (where public transportation is not available) so that they’d have reliable transportation I’d say BRILLIANT well done. You’ve seen a need and addressed it.

I see this program as a waste of valuable tax dollars with too many opportunities for misuse. I do think there should be something available to the people that Vickie spoke of that could be governed on a case by case basis, but I think the program as it stands now makes my blood boil.

Is the reason you are against this program the fact that they are giving away a free cell phone instead of a free stationary home phone? - imo, cell phones are more convenient as they travel and one never knows when a child will need to be picked up from school sick or hurt while their single parent is at work, taking care of a sick parent, grocery shopping, picking up medicine or taking some time to go to the doctors because they are sick with the flu.

This is being done by the people that where hired to run the program.... an income eligible program at that - so the program is actually helping those in need and not just those that are looking for a free cell phone.

Yes, the reason I am against this is because it is a cell phone. They ARE more convenient. HOWEVER a cell phone is much more difficult for a young child to use if they should need to do something like call 911. It is more of a single person object, it’s easily lost, broken, cell phones are not as reliable as a home phone. A home phone is accessible to all the members of the family the minutes are unlimited. How are the people left at home calling you exactly when you have the only phone available to them is on your person?

Actually looking at the cost, I don't have a home phone because it costs more than a cell phone. The only phone I have is my cell phone because out in the rural areas, there are pole charges & other stupid costs that drove up the cost of having a home phone to over $100 & that was before any internet charges would be added. I can keep my cell phone charges very low especially if there is limited calling allowed...you can get cell phone service for as low as $39.99. If the government decides they have to all all the features.....then that is wrong....just calling ability for emergencies is all that is needed...not unlimited calling, texting & internet ability....keep it to the basics as no one needs more than that.

When I got rid of my home phone in California, the phone company said they would keep the phone line going for 911 calls.....& that had nothing to do with the government.

I don’t know, I just see so many problems that will happen and there’s probably many more that haven’t even crossed my mind.

The 911 issue is partially case and point. In my hometown, where this service is available if you dial 911 from a land line you get the local county sheriffs department, which is 30 miles away, who will dispatch the appropriate emergency services. If you call from a cell phone you get one of two options (unless you are a cellcom customer in which case it is *something). If you are in the north side of town you will get the state police dispatcher located in a town 110 miles from that location. Most of them haven’t even heard of this town so you have to tell them to notify the local county sheriff’s department because the local state police post was closed due to budget cuts. If you are in the south part of town you get the county sheriff’s department in a neighboring state located about 60 miles from your location.

There have been many political and economic issues about the 911 service that come into play when there are precious few minutes to spare. In an emergency it is very difficult to remain calm and explain where you are in relation to whoever answers. I just don’t see a child being able to do this when I had a difficult time doing it as a grown adult fully aware of what was going to happen. I happened to be in the south side of town and had to deal with interstate issues. I was lucky, since my father worked for the sheriff’s department for 20 years, I knew the direct number by heart and when the 911 operator was too obtuse to give me the appropriate service I hung up and called them directly.

The main full time residents of my hometown are widows. If there was a Jitterbug type service available for these older women who live on their own I’d be totally on board. If there was some type of screening other than economic I’d support it, provided that they were still able to maintain a land line service in the home if more than one person lives there. If you can show an actual need for it I fully support it being available to you. I think the way the program is set up right now there are more people that will be harmed than helped.

Hmmm, let me see - the babysitter has her own cell phone, one of the next door neighbors probably has a home phone and lets not forget that the children in question are usually at school or day care during the day while their parent is at work.... lets try not to make this subject one sided (its a phone for the parent, not the child).

These phone are only set up to receive and dial local calls per your AREA CODE..... no money being wasted on extra's that are not needed.

Rhapsody, I’m not trying to be difficult really, I do not think you are understanding my point. The government is providing a phone for the benefit of the household for a specific purpose. It is called “Lifeline” for a reason. It was set up to make emergency and other services available to the needy. The added benefit of being able to use that same tool to have non-essential communication with others is a bonus, nothing more. The odds of the actual need for emergency services can be pretty slim, but they do exist and we cannot in good conscience refuse a person based upon their financial situation. But we do not promise them convenience, especially at the cost of the other members of the family in the household.

Many families that choose to utilize this service DO have small children at home, not yet school age or on summer vacation or after school hours or weekends/holidays (only 35 hours a week are spent in school), and if the phone the government provides to that family for necessity is with mom at the grocery store or work and dad or a babysitter is at home with the kids, they do not have a phone available to them. To the ones left in the household it is like not having a phone at all. Where is their Lifeline to the outside world? Is this not the reason the program was set up to begin with?

What good does is it for my co-worker for example to have her phone in her purse while she’s picking up her daughter’s medicine, diapers, or food if while the child is at home with her babysitter (co-worker’s 18 year old sister. Who gets paid $1 an hour per child more to watch them by the state than if they were in a certified day care) if the child has a seizure while at home? The very reason we gave this woman a phone is so that medical attention can be provided to that child. Now once the babysitter runs down the hill to their Aunt’s house and calls 911, it’s handy that mom can be immediately notified that her daughter is on route to the hospital.

As I said, the only way I can see this program working the way it’s intended, is for the only people eligible for it are single individuals. Even then there are also issues that people making these decisions haven’t really considered. As much as it pains me to say this because the woman I’m talking about is one of the most irresponsible people that I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet, if this program was done on a case by case basis, in my opinion she’d be one of the few people that qualified for a government funded cell phone in addition to the home phone that is so greatly needed.