On July 23 the FCC released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in WC Docket No 13-184 that asks questions about modernizing the E-rate program for schools and libraries. The E-rate program has been around for a few decades and has been used to bring broadband to schools and libraries.
But last month President Obama announced a ConnectED initiative that has the stated goal of bringing a minimum of 100 Mbps and a goal of 1 Gbps to 99% of students within five years. This NPRM is in response to that initiative.
A 2010 FCC survey showed that only 10% of schools had speeds of 100 Mbps or greater. 48% of schools had speeds less 10 Mbps. 39% of schools reported cost as the barrier to better speeds while 27% cited the cost of installation as a barrier. And the situation is worse in our libraries. In a 2011 survey by the American Library Association only 9% of libraries have speeds of 100 Mbps or faster while 25% still have speeds of 1.5 Mbps or less.
There is clearly a need for revised E-rate funding. In the most recent year there were requests for funding from schools of over $4.9 B from a fund that is at an annual cap of $2.25 B. The E-rate program is funded today as part of the Universal Service Fund that gets fund by a surcharge put on a wide variety of telecommunications end-user bills.
The FCC has laid forth new goals for the E-rate program and also suggested a number of specific changes. The new goals include 1) That schools and libraries have affordable access to broadband in order to meet the goals of ConnectED; 2) that the effectiveness of the E-rate funding is maximized, and 3) that the administration of the program is streamlined.
The FCC seeks comments on the specific speed requirements needed for schools and libraries. They offer the target established by the State Education Technology Directors Association (SETDA) which suggests that K-12 schools should have at least 100 Mbps per 1,000 students by 2015 and 1 Gbps for every 1,000 students by 2018. For libraries they offer the State Library of Kansas recommendation that all libraries should have 1 Gbps connectivity by 2020.
One of the issues that the NPRM looks at is how to get the bandwidth around the school once it’s delivered to the side of a school. This is a significant issue because today’s wiring technologies and wireless technologies have a steep drop-off in data speeds over even short distances. So the NPRM looks for comments on how to best get the bandwidth to classrooms. The State E-Rate Coordinators Association (SECA) has suggested that this issue is of high enough importance that it ought to be at the top of the priority list for E-rate funding.
The NPRM asks questions about increasing the efficiencies of buying broadband. This includes consortium purchasing and other bulk buying opportunities. The larger school districts are able to negotiate better rates today than small school districts due to the fact that they serve a significant number of schools. There must be ways for neighboring districts to band together for efficiency (although local politics is often a barrier to this process).
The NPRM also asks what the funding should be used for. It suggests that funding be transitioned to support only broadband. The funding is currently used for a number of other purposes which were allowable under the old rules. For example, in the most recent funding year there were requests for $260 M to subsidize telephone lines.
Finally, the NPRM looks at who is eligible for the E-rate program. Today the program pays for some portion of eligible costs based upon the percentage of student enrollment that is eligible for a free or reduced price lunch in a given school. The school gets a discount based upon that factor and must then match between 10% and 80% of the cost. The NPRM looks at alternate eligibility requirements including (1) revising the discount matrix to increase certain applicants’ matching requirements; (2) providing support on a district-wide basis; (3) revising the approach to supporting rural schools and libraries; (4) incorporating a per-student or per-building cap on funding into the discount matrix; (5) providing more equitable access to priority two funding; and (6) allocating funds to all eligible schools and libraries up front.
Comments in the NPRM are due to the FCC by September 16, 2013. CCG Consulting will probably be making some comments in the Docket, so if you have anything you want to say let me know and it can be included in our filing.