A cellphone plan to bridge digital divide

The free cellphones come with voice mail, caller ID, call waiting, and text messaging, as well as the capability to call 60 countries, says Mr. Fuentes. After using the service for a year, customers can reapply if they are still eligible.

“As technology changes, the FCC saw that there was a change going from land line usage to more individuals purchasing cellphones,” Fuentes says. “We felt there was a need for this service on cellphones.”

In May, the US government announced that the number of American homes that only used cellphones had for the first time surpassed those that only had land lines.

“Having a cellphone is not a luxury anymore,” Fuentes says. “Now, it’s almost an inherent right to communication.”

As cellphones grow more popular among Americans, pay phones are quickly disappearing. In 1997, the US had more than 2 million pay phones. In 2007, they numbered 870,000.

In Boston, Francella Lord-Bryan remembers a time when she was out and trying to call her family for a ride, but was unable to find a pay phone. Ms. Lord-Bryan used to own a cellphone, but the costly bills forced her to give it up.

“You get stranded sometimes and I don’t have a car,” she says. “You cannot find a pay phone anymore.” Now, Lord-Bryan relies on her SafeLink phone.

And in Beck’s Boston neighborhood, she says that it’s not uncommon to have neither a land line nor a cellphone.

“I know my neighbor has no phone at all in her house,” says Beck, who once had to use a borrowed phone to call a poison-control line.

Not having access to a cellphone poses significant disadvantages for low-income families, specifically individuals who are looking for work, says Nicholas Sullivan, author of “You Can Hear Me Now: How Microloans and Cell Phones are Connecting the World’s Poor to the Global Economy.” One disadvantage he notes is that people without cellphones are less likely to receive calls about work opportunities. When they do, it’s often too late.

However, providing cellphones, he says, has many advantages. In 2008, Mr. Sullivan released a study focused on the economic benefits that were possible if low-income Americans owned a cellphone.

The study, compiled from two surveys, reported that 40 percent of blue-collar workers were able to increase their income by owning a cellphone.

“Their work is very mobile and a cellphone allowed them to stay in touch more,” Sullivan says.

Survey participants who used cellphones to obtain work earned $748.50 more a year than those who did not have cellphones. For lower income families, the advantage was a little lower, but participants earning $35,000 a year or less still reported making an additional $530 per year if they used a cellphone to job hunt, according to the study.

“I think the technology is such an empowering tool,” Sullivan says. “It gives people more strength and the ability to manage their own lives and ideally create their own income.”

Besides work benefits, the survey also focused on security and safety. Sullivan says survey respondents preferred a cellphone to a land line by more than a 3-to-1 ratio for emergency uses. Safety “still seems to be what people look to as the No. 1 attribute” of owning a cellphone, he says.

For John Cobb, a retired, disabled resident of Greensboro, N.C., safety has been his top concern for getting a cellphone through SafeLink. Though Mr. Cobb has a land line, he wanted to have a cellphone to use in case of emergencies.

So far, he has used his free phone only to check his voice mail, but still carries it with him everywhere he goes. Without the program, Cobb says he wouldn’t be able to afford a cellphone, since the $674 he receives a month “does not go far” after paying the costs of his medicine and rent.

“I feel [cellphones] are necessary,” he says. “I’m glad somebody is helping people in my situation out. We are in a new era, especially with the economy the way it is…. For somebody to do this, it’s the greatest thing to ever happen.”

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