FCC Boosts School Internet Funding

Federal regulators Thursday authorized a $1-billion increase in funding over the next year for a controversial program to wire the nation’s schools and libraries for Internet access.

The five-member Federal Communications Commission, with two commissioners dissenting in whole or in part, voted to spend $2.3 billion starting July 1 to wire as many as 528,000 additional classrooms and hundreds more public libraries to the Internet. The so-called e-rate program, part of about $4 billion in annual federal telecommunications subsidies mandated by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, has already helped connect 80,000 schools and libraries to the Internet by giving them discounts on telecommunications equipment and services.

“The investment that we make today will pay dividends for generations for many years to come,” FCC Chairman William Kennard said. The program, he said, is helping to “narrow the digital divide” between better-connected suburban school districts and their largely unconnected poor, inner-city and rural counterparts.

The spending will have a significant impact in California, which received $206 million, or about one-sixth, of last year’s total e-rate funding. California is expected to receive a similar share of this year’s allocation, which will mean a near doubling of the state’s amount.

Experts say that will help more schools follow in the footsteps of the San Bernardino City Unified School District, which used $20 million from the e-rate program last year to wire 57 of its 58 schools for Internet access as well as start an e-mail exchange program between students and local businesses.

“The FCC vote will help our children better prepare for the high-tech workplace,” National School Boards Assn. President Anne L. Bryant said.

In boosting funding for the e-rate program, Kennard confronted criticism of a bipartisan group of congressional leaders, including Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), the ranking member of the House Commerce Committee, and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas). Armey had asked the FCC to delay the vote.

Long-distance companies are assessed a fee to pay for the program and in the past have passed along the cost of the subsidies to consumers. However, the three major long-distance carriers declined Thursday to say whether they intended to pass along the funding increase.

Kennard insists that the e-rate funding increase shouldn’t raise phone users’ bills because it is offset by reductions in fees long-distance carriers pay local phone companies to connect long-distance calls.

But even members of the FCC’s staff say some consumers will see an increase in their monthly phone bills--perhaps as much as an additional 10 to 25 cents per month.

“We think e-rate is a good program. We just wish the FCC would find another way to pay for it,” said Mark Cooper, telecommunications policy director for the Consumer Federation of America. “If things keep going the way they are, pretty soon we’ll be talking about [an extra] $15 a month.”

Separately, the FCC approved a draft plan aimed at slowing the proliferation of telephone area codes.

Poor management of telephone numbers, an explosion of wireless phones and a refusal of the telephone industry to invest in new technology are driving a need for more area codes, experts say.

To cut demand, the FCC has proposed that telephone numbers be allocated in blocks of 1,000 rather than the current 10,000 to reduce the incidence of allocated but unused numbers.