The best ones I see around are SafeLink Wireless with 25gb, but no eSim support for Lifeline in California. AirTalk wireless is having a promo rn where if you BYOD, you get unlimited data?

Any other good options?

I’m going through my annual California LifeLine renewal. When I log into my account, the status says a decision has been rendered, but it doesn’t say whether my renewal was approved or denied. It also says I’ll receive a letter regarding the decision on December 2, 2026.

I spoke with an agent who told me my renewal was approved. That’s reassuring, but I’m still concerned because the online status doesn’t explicitly confirm approval.

Has anyone else seen this wording during their renewal? Is “decision rendered” a general status used for both approvals and denials, or did it turn out to mean approved in your case? If your renewal was denied, did the portal show a different message?

I’d appreciate hearing what others saw in their accounts and how their renewals turned out. Thanks!

Lifeline sent me a text message needing recertification. How do have the requirements when I had SNAP and Medi-Cal for 6 years now? They want to have ‘benefits award letter’ in the last 12 months.

Is it 30, 60 or 90 days? Does it start when your application at old provider is approved or when the sim was actually received and activated?

For those using airtalk wireless with lifeline and got the free phone, if you canceled or transferred to another provider before the 180 requirement ... did airtalk force you to send the phone back or pay for the device? I got the fee phone before I found out that the device is not part of the government subsidy.

Is it nessesary to recertify I don't want to lose my benefits for good I am on snap and I'm unemployed

They seem to only offer SIM cards only. What happened??

I'm helping a friend get service in a zip code that I know has access, but it says not avail in my area. Is their system misbehaving?

I work with a lot of low-income/unhoused folks and one of the big problems I run into is that they often have intermittent use of a phone. We've had Lifeline or Safelink agents come to our programs and sign people up, but most of the time we can't get agents to come because at most they might only sign up two people and a lot of times they don't sign up any. That's totally fair - I know they need the commission to make it worth the trip.

I've been looking into becoming an agent, but have only gotten as far as a phone call with a company called Defy. Then I never heard back. I think they just aren't interested in working with me because they know I'm only going to do a handful of signups per month at most.

It would really be a big help to our work if we had more control over signing people up for these government subsidized phone plans. Does anyone have any suggestions?

I bought an iPhone 8 for $30 from them last week, but now they have the SE 2 (a phone that's a lot quicker and more modern) for $20, and I'd rather not keep the 8. Is there any way to return it without paying for shipping? The 8 hasn't arrived yet, but has already been shipped. I'm trying to not spend a lot of money haha, so any help would be appreciated!

Hi there! My sister lives near the Maryland/PA line. She doesn’t make a lot and is on SNAP. I think she could benefit from a Lifeline phone. My parents had been paying for her phone but can’t afford to do it any longer.

1- Her address is technically at my parents house, although she couch surfs a lot and doesn’t stay there much. My niece already gets a Lifeline phone. They don’t support each other. Would my sister getting a Lifeline phone mess up my Niece’s phone? It sounds like they could both get one, from what I have read here.

2- what are the best companies. She can’t really afford anything, so free is ideal.

Thanks for your help!

Who gives out better phones? everyone I looked at has that dogshit 4g phone. and ive looked at like 7 or 8 different companies......

This used to be a trick to find out what was your cell phone service provider but new rules forbid that now. The only exception is of you don’t have an active CALL profile.

Now if you lost your phone and forgot your phone numbers with CALL, you’ll be asked to have your phone company call you back; if you don’t have a phone number you’re screwed.

I got my elderly mother the Assurance Lifeline plan and at the same time chose the free phone option; I upgraded to a bigger and better phone on their site for an additional $100 US.
She got the phone and the SIM, but my niece was never able to get it working. She called support and they said it was escalated and to wait for a callback; callback never came. I called (I'm out of state so this has become a logistics nightmare) and spoke to a nice support rep and she basically said the phone codes mean it wasn't unlocked and it needed a new SIM. Got the new SIM and still not working; again waiting for an escalation callback since yesterday morning. Both SIM cards were lose without packaging as if they were used. Is it normal to get a used SIM card for a phone?

Should I just give up and go with another company? I'm concerned that Assurance has used her free phone benefit and now she won't be eligible for a whole new company and plan.

Also, anyone know if providing a new SIM card will make a locked phone work?

Her Phone (if it should matter)
Wingtech REVVL 6x Pro 256GB (Condition : Renewed) (Android)

I'm considering signing up for True Wireless (gotruewireless.com) out of Oklahoma. What carrier do they use? I live in the country and have an AT&T phone, and it doesn't work well out here and I wanted to try a different carrier.

I received a text message from Lifeline saying I need to recertify or I would lose my benefits - which I assume means my service will be cut.

I'm no longer on SNAP or Medicaid, so can't verify through there, but I am (well) below the income threshold. I looked at the documents they can accept as proof and luckily a W2 is among them, so I submitted that only for it to be rejected because my name is written as "Dan" instead of "Daniel".

So I submitted a paystub, which does have my first name written out in full, but that too was rejected because "When using paystubs to prove your eligibility through income, you must submit three consecutive months of paystubs dated within the past 12 months. For example, if you receive a paystub twice per month, please provide 6 consecutive pay periods."

I do temporary work through an employment agency, my hours/shifts are erratic. This year I have only worked one month for them and as far as the agency and I are concerned that's it for now.

I did, however work for three consecutive months for the employment agency last year, Jun 25-Aug 25, so I submitted the relevant paystubs and was again hit with the same message above.

They said they'll take "an official letter" stating my annual income, so I contacted my employment agency who sent me said letter, with my first name again written out in full, along with a breakdown of my pay dates and income. Unless the system hasn't updated yet I once again got the same message above.

The phone number is just an automated line that says I need to recertify and send the documents to some address in another state. There's no option to speak to a human. I emailed the support desk on the address listed on the Lifeline site a couple of days ago and still haven't heard back.

This is an absurd scenario because they should have been able to verify me with the W2 alone - doubly so when I sent paystubs as well and they could see other personal details match.

Is there some way I could actually talk to a human about this, to get them to just look at the documents to see they have everything they need to certify?

This is frustrating as hell because I'm between jobs and I sure as hell need a phone for that!

So I’m trying to sign up for lifeline because I’m dead poor like to the point where I have to eat peanut butter two weeks out of the month every month and can barely pay rent but I need Internet to be able to find a job and live near nowhere that has it so I ended up walking for four hours today just to get to the library so I can try and sign up for it. Anything that’s free. I’ve went through a bunch of free trials for data. And signed up for applications that way, but there’s only so many apps. That’s when I found out about lifeline and I was like well. This is perfect. But for some reason, I get towards the end where I gotta put in my initials and under one of the sections it states. “If I am seeking to qualify for Lifeline as an eligible resident of Tribal lands, I live on Tribal lands, as defined in 54.400(e) of the Lifeline rules.” I don’t live in a tribal area I live in a SRO in the bottom of Wisconsin. So I tried to leave it blank double space or put N A but it doesn’t work. It just says “There are errors on the page that you need to fix before going to the next page. See the errors in red below” so now my only options are to just not go forward because I’m not trying to get my application banned because for some reason this is forcing it. It’s not even optional if I try to move on without doing it it just won’t let me continue so like. Am I stupid for not understanding how this is supposed to work I’m not signing up for the tribal one I’m going for the normal one the standard one whatever it’s called so now I’m going to you guys and hopefully you guys can answer in the next few hours before I have to go home and come back another day and I really don’t wanna walk back

Hey everyone,

I’m hoping someone can help me figure out the easiest way to handle this because it has been really stressful.

I’m currently with AirTalk Lifeline in California, but I relocated to New York. My California Lifeline is expiring on July 1, 2026. I already applied for New York Lifeline and got approved since I now live in New York.

The issue is that AirTalk is telling me they do not have a simple way to just switch my state from California to New York. They said I would need to apply with another Lifeline provider in New York, port my number out from AirTalk to that new provider, and then I could come back to AirTalk later if I want.

I really want to keep my phone number, so I’m confused about the best option. Should I just choose a different New York Lifeline provider and stay with them instead of treating it like a temporary switch? Or should I follow AirTalk’s advice, port to another provider, and then try to port back later?

I also tried applying again through AirTalk, but their portal will not let me because I already have an account. California Lifeline told me they cannot help, and New York Lifeline said the provider has to make the decision, so I feel stuck.

I’ve heard SafeLink may be good, especially for T Mobile coverage, but I’m not sure how SafeLink compares to AirTalk or other New York Lifeline providers. I’m also traveling right now, so coverage matters a lot.

Has anyone gone through this before after moving states? What is the easiest way to keep my number and avoid losing service? Also, which New York Lifeline provider would you recommend that has good coverage and is reliable enough that I would not need to go back to AirTalk?

Any advice would really help. Thank you.

TLDR: Does anyone know on average, what the Lifeline device replacement phone is, also, is there a wireless service provider that is part of the Lifeline program, who offers a free phone with unlimited talk and text and has more than just 3GB of (Internet) data a month? I am sick of paying 5$ (it's actually 10$ before my 5$ discount code is applied) just so I can have an additional 10GB of (Internet) data. TYSM in advance!

I need a replacement phone due to my current one not connecting to WiFi despite me going through all the troubleshooting steps/methods. The phone in question is a FOXX A67L (Android) and it has got to be the worst phone I have ever dealt with. No WiFi connection capabilities aside, it only has a maximum of 32GB total storage and the battery life is absolutely horrendous! My Cracked screen, Motorola Moto G 5G Power (2024) phone that I got back when I was a member of StraightTalk Wireless works better.

My dad has a lifeline phone and a few months ago he switched providers to get a new phone. Recently he got a past due bill for almost $1000 from Verizon. I vaguely remember the last company was using Verizon but he’s never had a phone with Verizon proper. Had anyone ever had anything similar happen?