Raise E-rate Spending Cap, State Education Boards Say
The FCC should adopt FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s draft order at Thursday's commission meeting to raise E-rate’s spending cap by $1.5 billion (see 1411170042), wrote Kristen Amundson, executive director of the National Association of State Boards of Education, in a…
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Dec. 1 letter to the agency posted Friday in docket 13-184. “Historic education reforms,” including the implementation of college and career standards, “require or benefit significantly, from high capacity broadband,” Amundson wrote. “Unfortunately, far too many schools -- particularly the nation's rural schools -- lack access to broadband at the levels needed to adequately support effective teaching and learning." School district officials have also written the commission supporting the higher cap, according to ex parte filings. The Urban Libraries Council urged the commission to increase the amount of E-rate funding a library can receive, said an ex parte filing posted Friday. Three percent of libraries represent almost a third of all library Wi-Fi users, said a study ULC submitted in the filing. The libraries need more funding than allowed under the commission’s July E-rate modernization order (see 1407140044), wrote ULC President Susan Benton in a Nov. 28 letter, also included in the filing. Allowing the heaviest users to qualify for the funding they need would guarantee that the busiest 7 percent of libraries, with more than 63 percent of public Wi-Fi users, would be eligible for “requisite funding,” Benton wrote.