FCC Commissioner Rosenworcel gets specific about E-Rate

Last week, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel appeared at the sprawling and often trendsetting SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. She came to talk about the mechanics of the federal E-Rate – the country’s largest education technology program – and the FCC’s E-Rate modernization plan called E-Rate 2.0.

Rosenworcel recalled the old Three Rs of education: readin’, writin’ and rithmatic,. Instead, she said, the FCC has planned the three S’s for E-Rate.

•    Speed. “In the near term, we want to have 100 Megabits per 1000 students to all of our schools.  By the end of the decade, we want to have 1 Gigabit per 1000 students to all of our schools.”

•    Simplify. “I want us to reduce the bureaucracy associated with E-Rate... To this end, I would like to see multiyear applications.  As small as that sounds, the impact could be big.  If applications were due every other year, that would cut the administrative cost of applying in half.”

•    Spending Smart.  “The E-Rate program was sized at $2.25 billion in annual support back in 1998.  That was when .03 percent of American households had Internet access at any speed above dial-up.  That was when gas was just over a dollar a gallon.  It was a long time ago... At a minimum, we need to restore the purchasing power of this program by bringing back what inflation has taken away.”

As part of the process of upgrading its E-Rate rules, the FCC Wireline Competition Bureau last week sought public comment on three issues raised in its E-rate Modernization Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

CWA has long been supportive of the E-Rate program. Last summer, CWA said in a news release:

“Since its creation 17 years ago, E-Rate has provided more than $30 billion to connect the overwhelming majority of schools to the Internet. When the E-rate program first was established, just 14 percent of classrooms were connected. Today over 92 percent of all classrooms are connected.”

The success of E-Rate means success for all: students, teachers, manufacturers, workers and the country.

Read Rosenworcel’s whole speech here.

Remarks Of Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel Sxswedu [South by Southwest education] Conference & Festival (Mar. 10, 2014)

Wireline Competition Bureau seeks focused comment on E-rate Modernization (FCC news release, Mar. 6, 2014)

FCC Expansion of E-rate Will Mean Higher Speed Networks for Schools, Libraries (CWA news release, Jul. 19, 2013)