Editorial Policy

Give low-income U.S. households clear, accurate, plain-English guidance on how to obtain a working smartphone through the federal Lifeline benefit - and to do it without hiding the real limits, wait times, or trade-offs behind marketing language.

Every guide is written or edited by a named person on the Lifeline Free iPhone editorial team. Our senior editor is Peter M. Sullivan, who has covered U.S. universal-service programs since 2011. His verified profile is on LinkedIn.

We do not publish anonymous or AI-generated bylines. If a piece was drafted with the help of an AI assistant, a human editor rewrites it, verifies every claim, and puts their name on the byline.

Every factual claim on this site should be traceable to at least one of:

• Federal statute, FCC rule, or USAC published guidance.
• A named Lifeline provider's current terms of service.
• Publicly available Apple product documentation for device specifications.
• A first-hand approval or shipping report from a household we have verified against their Lifeline enrollment.

Where a source is publicly available, we link to it. See Sources & Methodology for the full list of primary sources we consult.

Our editors decide which Lifeline providers we recommend and how we rank them. Commercial staff are never in the room when editorial rankings are finalised, and no provider is given an opportunity to review a review before publication.

Some outbound provider links on this site are affiliate links; when a reader enrols after clicking one, we may receive a referral fee at no cost to the reader. Affiliate relationships never influence which providers are covered or how they are ranked - the four providers we currently recommend most highly include two that do not offer an affiliate program.

Every published guide is reviewed by a second editor before it goes live and re-verified against primary sources at least every six months. See our Fact-Check Policy for the checklist we use.

We publish visible corrections when we get something wrong. See our Corrections Policy for how corrections are logged and displayed.

Reader reviews shown on provider and device pages are only published after we verify the reader's Lifeline enrollment status. We do not accept paid testimonials and we do not filter reviews by sentiment - negative reviews are published alongside positive ones as long as they describe a genuine experience.