In a letter to the FCC last week, five major E-rate suppliers — Cisco Systems, ENA by Zayo, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard, and Microsoft — urged the FCC to permit applicants to use their existing Category 2 budgets to provide discounted funding on next-generation firewalls. A similar position was espoused by the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband (“SHLB”) Coalition.
The suppliers’ proposal to permit advanced firewall support within existing Category 2 budgets was perhaps triggered by earlier FCC comments in response to a General Accounting Office (“GAO”) report indicating the need for additional Federal coordination to enhance K-12 cybersecurity protection. At the time, pointing to an estimate by the Consortium for School Networking (“CoSN”) that it would cost the E-rate program almost $2.4 billion/per year to provide advanced security systems for all K-12 schools, the FCC indicated that this would push E-rate discounts well above the annual E-rate cap. As we pointed out in our newsletter of October 31st, however, existing Category 2 budgets should be able to support roughly $550 million per year towards cybersecurity support — a clear step in the right direction.
As a fallback position to full Category 2 budget funding for advanced firewalls, the five-suppliers, SHLB and CoSN also expressed support — as do we — for a more modest three-year pilot program recently proposed to the FCC by Funds For Learning (“FFL”) that would:
- Offer up to $60 million per year in annual Category 2 funding for advanced firewalls.
- Seek public comment on mechanisms for the FCC to support cybersecurity.
- Continue the FCC’s interagency cybersecurity work.
FFL’s proposal would place little to no additional burden on annual E‑rate funding while providing some indication of applicant cybersecurity priorities as the FCC considers a broader public rulemaking. Recognizing that $60 million in annual E-rate discounts would fall far short of total demand, FFL proposes that pilot funding be prioritized by economic need (i.e., discount rate).
Although the formal comment period for the FY 2023 Eligible Services List is closed, we encourage E-rate applicants and service providers to continue contacting the FCC to express support for cybersecurity eligibility and, as an interim measure, for FFL’s proposed pilot program. Support need not require an extensive filing. We believe that the arguments in favor of making cybersecurity eligible have been well documented. But there is strength in numbers and there is a simple mechanism for submitting “Express” comments.
To submit an express comment, go to the FCC’s Express Comment site, select Proceeding 13-184, “Modernizing the E-rate Program for Schools and Libraries”, fill in your basic contact information, type (or paste) your “Brief Comments” into the textbox, review and submit.
As an example, here is a copy of E-Rate Central’s submission:
In a related initiative, the State Educational Technology Directors Association (“SETDA”) recently released a report outlining steps that states can take to promote cybersecurity best practices in developing an “Incident Response Plan.” SEDTA focused on the following four areas:
- Procurement Practices: establish procurement processes to help districts vet vendors more efficiently and reduce administrative burden.
- Convening: counteract shortcomings in expertise through collaboration with other districts.
- Incident Response Plan: encourage sharing of response plans to help districts prepare for inevitable cyber events.
- Phishing and Awareness Training: professional training for school staff to better identify vulnerabilities and build districtwide cybersecurity awareness.