If you have been keeping up with our blog, you might have seen that we have been talking about E-Rate and its proposal to include WiFi. Well, on Friday July 11th, the proposal was approved in a 3-2 vote that has given the project the “go ahead”
This package deal plans to spend $1 billion each year for the next 5 years on subsidies for internal networks for schools and libraries. These subsidies will help schools and libraries upgrade their WiFi networks, which is part of a much larger effort to modernize educational institutes communication networks. The current E-Rate program is set to communication technologies of the mid 1990s.
The previous E-Rate program also included a priority that funds must be spent first on broadband services before they could apply them to WiFi. This will no longer be the case with the new approval. Schools and Libraries may now focus their funds on WiFi networks as their main priority.
This push for WiFi has come alongside Obama’s ConnectED program, which has set its goal to put 100Mbps connections in all schools by 2017. According to FCC chairman Thomas Wheeler, the new E-Rate program budget will give 75% more WiFi funding to rural schools and 60% more funding to urban schools over the next 5 years.
The program is currently capped at $2.4 billion a year, but the demand for E-Rate funds is about double. Wheeler has expressed the consideration of lifting the cap, but said the programs structure must change beforehand. “Let me be clear, it would be a mistake to simply add money to a program that was set in the 20th century,” Wheeler said.
For more information about the E-Rate Upgrade Proposal read our previous blog:
https://genesisbcs.com/e-rate-to-include-wi-fi/
For original articles please visit:
http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/11/5888059/fcc-approves-e-rate-reform-proposal-2014