Now you can now switch AND take your phone number with you.
If you are a Lifeline free government cell phone customer, you can now switch service providers any time you want. The USAC, the organization that governs the free government cell phone program, has officially eliminated port freezes that left customers stuck with their current provider or alternatively, lose their phone number if they want to switch providers.
This is outstanding news for Lifeline free government cell phone customers.
According to the USAC.org website:
The Lifeline Program’s port freeze rule was eliminated on March 19, 2018. On that date, port freezes were removed from the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD), and any customers that were in a port freeze had the restriction removed.
USAC will not implement an administrative port freeze. NLAD users should no longer encounter port freeze error messages.
Effective March 19, the Lifeline port freeze rules will be eliminated. The rules, which originally took effect in December 2016, precluded Lifeline free government phone customers from transferring to another provider.
Less than a year later, the FCC determined that the port freeze rules “limit[ed] Lifeline consumers’ ability to seek more competitive offerings and obtain those services that best meet their needs” nor did it promote competition. As part of the rule elimination, NLAD will be updated to remove the port freeze constraints and customers in port freeze status as of that date will have the restriction lifted.
Of course, the companies that provide free government cell phones will undoubtedly disagree that this is good news. It will mean more work for customer service reps working with customers wishing to bring their phone number over from a different service provider and it will mean more competition among the free cell phone providers. No longer will the cell phone providers be able to keep your phone number hostage (and keep you their customer) and offer horrible service.
But no matter what the companies may say, we know that Lifeline customers consider the elimination of the port freeze to be a good thing.