Tracfone began providing its service, called SafeLink, in Tennessee in August and now does so in 16 states, including New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia, according to its Web site. Each time it enters a market  which generally requires state approval  it runs television ads telling people how easy it is to get a free Motorola phone, like Mr. Cobb’s.

The company says the economy makes the audience particularly receptive. “We’ll read that more people are signing up for food stamps and look at our numbers and see volume rising,” said Jose Fuentes, director of government relations for Tracfone. “It’s not scientific proof,” he added. “But we know times are tough.”

He declined to say how many subscribers have signed up. But he said Tracfone, whose paid service has 10 million subscribers, sees the Lifeline service as an opportunity to make some money but, more pointedly, to eventually convert the subsidized customers into paying ones if their fortunes turn around and they no longer qualify for a free phone.

“It could make for a good business,” Mr. Fuentes said.

According to Nielsen, 90 percent of Americans have at least one cellphone. That leaves 32 million, including the infirm, still up for grabs. “And the race is on to get them,” Mr. Entner said.

He said the overwhelming majority of Americans with subsidized wireless service receive it through Tracfone.

One of them is Leon Simmons, 52, of the Bronx, N.Y., who did stints in the Navy, at the Post Office and as a security guard before becoming disabled with emphysema. His wife, who works a minimum wage job at a laundry, heard about the Tracfone service and he got a phone in April.

The free phone is not, as it is for some others in the program, their sole form of telecommunications. Out of the roughly $1,600 they make each month after taxes, they pay $159 for a landline telephone, high-speed Internet and cable television. But the cellphone, Mr. Simmons says, gives him the flexibility to tell his wife or daughter his comings and goings or to stay in touch when he is at the doctor.