Free Prepaid Phones - How is this possible?!How is this program possible? Basically, the government is providing TracFone with money to enable them to offer free prepaid phones. Of course, I don't know the specifics of the deal/agreement, but I expect that they're not making as much money as they would on their regular TracFone customers (i.e. they're giving the government a discount), but are still making some money to make it worth their while. So are my tax dollars going to support this program anyway? No. In fact, all telecommunications service providers must contribute to the Federal Universal Service Fund (USF) from their service revenues. Some companies pass on these fees to customers (which would show up on your bill), while others choose not to. So what's the catch? There honestly really isn't a catch to this free prepaid phone program. The government believes that as with other services for low income households (ex. food stamps, Medicaid, etc.), access to 
cell phone service is important. In
fact, the FCC states that "telephone service is considered a necessity
for daily modern life." The number of minutes included really
boils down to around 2 minutes per day. So it's really for
emergency use, to let your family know you're running late, or will be
home soon, etc. If you're thinking you can take advantage of
this
program to get free service, and will be able to use your phone
regularly without having to add any money of your own, you'll be
disappointed.Are there other options? There are other services that offer telephone assistance programs. Virgin Mobile offers a similar program called Assurance Wireless that is worth checking out. Or to learn more, you can also visit the Universal Service Administrative Company’s website, or the Federal Communications Commission’s website. Aside from the SafeLink website, you can also learn more about their service by calling 1-800-977-3768. What states are offer the service? At the time of writing this, the following states were listed as being included in offering SafeLink free prepaid phones. While I try to keep the site as up to date as possible, if your state isn't listed, please check their website as they are added new states all the time. Alabama, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. States listed as "coming soon":
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