Obama Wants Schools and Libraries to Have 100 Mbps Connections within Five Years

President Barack Obama urged the FCC Thursday to make high-speed Internet available to enough schools and libraries to connect 99 percent of American students. Obama wants the commission to meet that goal within five years, which will require modernization of its existing E-rate program, the White House said. “We are living in a digital age, and to help our students get ahead, we must make sure they have access to cutting-edge technology,” Obama said, calling this a “challenge” that businesses, schools and governments can rally around.

"The average American school has about the same bandwidth as the average American home, even though obviously there are 200 times as many people at school as there are at home,” Obama said at Mooresville Middle School in North Carolina. “Only around 20 percent of our students have access to true high-speed Internet in their classroom. By comparison, South Korea has 100 percent of its kids with high-speed Internet. ... In a country where we expect free Wi-Fi with our coffee, why shouldn’t we have it in our schools?"

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said this could take “a temporary slight increase in fees for the short term to get this done,” which the administration thinks is “the best investment we can make.” The program is not just about improving education, but about remaining economically competitive in a global market, he said. “We're either going to see children in South Korea and India and China and Singapore have competitive advantages, or not. And I just think that’s not fair to our kids. Our children are as smart, as talented, as committed, as entrepreneurial as children anywhere in the globe."

Duncan declined to offer a precise price tag on how much all this connectivity will cost. “It’s really important that the FCC do that analysis” and “figure out what we could do with existing resources,” he said. The FCC is the agency that’s “going to do the heavy lifting” in making the program a reality, he said. FCC officials told us they're actively considering next steps, which would likely take the form of a rulemaking.

The FCC’s Democratic commissioners applauded the announcement. Although the E-rate program has successfully helped connect schools and libraries to the Internet, “basic Internet access is no longer sufficient,” said acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn in a statement. “I applaud the President for his bold vision. I look forward to working with my fellow Commissioners and the many stakeholders as we answer the President’s call to modernize this vital program.” Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who has been calling for an “E-Rate 2.0” that would see 100 Mbps speeds per 1,000 students (WID May 3 p7), called the proposed initiative “an exciting effort that has my wholehearted and enthusiastic support.” Commissioner Ajit Pai’s office declined to comment on the proposal.

The plan would also attempt to “level the playing field” for rural students, the White House said, building on Universal Service Fund and Broadband Technology Opportunities Program efforts. Under the proposal, the Department of Education would work with states and school districts to better use existing funding through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act to help train teachers to use the technology effectively.

NCTA President Michael Powell said the cable industry welcomes the president’s announcement and looks forward to working toward “wisely” modernizing existing support mechanisms. NTCA CEO Shirley Bloomfield said the ConnectED initiative could give “a boost for distance-learning,” and encouraged the commission to “make sure to leverage both the existing broadband infrastructure and the expertise in rural communities, and to build upon the hard work of these entrepreneurial communications providers and the mechanisms that already support our national universal service objectives.”