FCC Expected to OK $1.5 Billion E-rate Cap Increase
The FCC is expected to approve the order proposed by Chairman Tom Wheeler to raise E-rate’s spending cap by $1.5 billion, at its meeting Thursday (see 1411170042). A number of significant other issues were up in the air, but education, library and industry lobbyists said they expected the commission to take steps to make it easier for schools and libraries to get connected to broadband, including requiring Connect America Fund (CAF) recipients to submit bids to serve the institutions. Schools and libraries have complained about not getting bids from broadband providers to serve them.
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A cap increase would be hailed by schools and libraries, which said the funding hasn’t been increased in years. “Thursday could be a very big day for the nation’s schools and libraries,” said Phillip Lovell, Alliance for Excellent Education vice president-federal advocacy.
“It’s a tough time to talk about proactive policies that put our children first in this constrained Washington, D.C., environment,” said Mary Kusler, National Education Association director-government relations. The cap increase would do just that, she said, “giving children living in poverty or in rural areas the same access as everyone else.” The FCC declined comment. Teachers and librarians were invited to speak at the commission meeting, one advocate said. Commissioners Mike O’Rielly and Ajit Pai were critical of the proposed cap increase, but neither office said Wednesday how those members planned to vote.
The commission at its meeting is also expected to approve raising CAF’s minimum broadband speed requirements (see 1412090057).
NCTA, Charter Communications and Comcast in recent days pushed for a cap on new infrastructure, arguing that without it, there might not be enough money left over for maintaining networks, said an ex parte filing. Cisco, fearing not enough money would be left over for Wi-Fi connections within schools, pushed for an annual cap on spending to build fiber to schools, said another ex parte filing describing a Dec. 4 meeting with an aide to Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel. Education advocates opposed both proposals.
The USF Rural Health Care Program has an infrastructure cap to “ensure that the Fund does not devote an excessive amount of support to large up-front payments for [applicants’] self construction, which could potentially foreclose [applicants’] ability to use the Fund for monthly recurring charges for broadband services,” NCTA said, quoting from the healthcare policies in the ex parte report of meetings Dec. 2 with aides to commissioners Mignon Clyburn, O’Rielly, Pai and Rosenworcel. The problem the commission “is trying to solve is closing the rural fiber gap,” countered EducationSuperHighway CEO Evan Marwell in an email. “We need to do this as quickly as possible because every year we wait is another year that millions of rural students are being left behind on the wrong side of the K-12 digital divide. Artificially limiting the number of schools that can be connected to fiber in a given year may significantly slow things down.”
Also unknown was how the commission will deal with a push by the Urban Libraries Council, represented by ex-FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, to give the nation’s largest libraries more E-rate funding than the flat fee given to all libraries. The ULC has argued the flat-fee, based on square footage, is unfair because it rewards larger suburban libraries over smaller urban libraries that serve more people. Hundt said Wednesday he didn’t know how the commission will handle the issue. “I’m holding my breath. My face is turning red and I’m in a supplicant’s position,” he said.
Increasing the total E-rate spending cap is “long overdue,” Hundt said, adding he hoped Republican commission members will support it. The program “helps children, the unemployed, and poor people,” he said, and should not be “held hostage by Washington partisanship.”
Education and libraries advocates, based on conversations with the agency, were optimistic about provisions that would allow schools to use E-rate funds to activate dark fiber (see 1411200032). The commission is also likely to change the definition of "urban clusters" that school districts said unfairly denied some districts the ability to get higher amounts of E-rate funds designated for rural schools, said Noelle Ellerson, American Association of School Administrators associate executive director-policy and advocacy.
Bob Wise, Alliance for Excellent Education president and former Democratic West Virginia governor, backed the $1.5 billion cap increase. “No modern business expects to function without access to high-speed internet,” he said in a written statement. “Why should we expect it of our schools and libraries?”