USAC Rolls Out New Required Lifeline Database Today

Eligible telecommunications carriers (ETCs) providing Lifeline discounts to customers will have a new database to contend with as part of USAC’s ongoing efforts to curb waste, fraud and abuse in the Lifeline program. USAC is rolling out Phase 1 of the new Representative Accountability Database (RAD) today and will begin to notify service providers with more information. The RAD will create a unique identifier for each user of the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD) and the National Verifier (NV) and USAC will use those identifiers to track activity on the two Lifeline sites. USAC expects that RAD will be fully implemented by the fourth quarter of 2019.

Carriers will be required to register any employees that enroll subscribers in Lifeline, immediate supervisors of those employees, individuals that contract with an ETC or manage teams of people who complete Lifeline enrollments, representatives that assist with the recertification process, customer service representatives that update personally identifiable information for existing Lifeline subscribers, and back office individuals that may review subscriber eligibility for enrollment or recertification. To register in RAD, employees will provide their names, dates of birth and last four digits of their social security numbers. That information will go through a validation process and USAC will manually review identity documentation.

Phase 2 of the process, which is expected to begin in late July, will require service providers to link the RAD IDs to existing NLAD and NV accounts, any new accounts, and any API IDs. The final phase, Phase 3, will require the representative’s ID to be included with all transactions in the NLAD and NV. If an individual user account doesn’t have a representative ID linked to it, it will be deactivated before the full implementation.

USAC will be hosting live training sessions for ETCs to assist their representatives in registering for RAD IDs. USAC also will provide additional information regarding Phase 2 of RAD during its July webinar.

If you have questions regarding this new requirement or anything Lifeline related, please contact Lans Chase at or 770-569-2105 or Lisa McLaughlin in JSI’s Texas office at 512-338-0473.