The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made some major changes to its discount program for school and library technology that are expected to connect 10 million students a year to digital tools. Traditionally, the E-rate program provided discounts on telecommunications and Internet access for K-12 schools and libraries based on the poverty level and urban or rural status of the populations they served. But more than half the budget went toward telephone services, email and other items, and there wasn’t much money left over for Wi-Fi after broadband requests were funded. With the modernization of the 18-year-old program in July, E-rate will now phase out telecommunications discounts so it can focus on broadband and Wi-Fi starting in 2015. This shift is happening because Internet access has greater potential to affect student learning than telecommunications, said Patrick Halley, associate chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau at the FCC in a CoSN webinar last month. Read more…
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