Earlier this month (see our newsletter of August 10th), the State E-Rate Coordinators' Alliance ("SECA") urged the FCC to fund additional Internet bandwidth and to extend the gift rule waiver throughout FY 2020. These requests were quickly supported by the American Library Association ("ALA"), the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition ("SHLB"), the Consortium for School Networking ("CoSN"), and the State Educational Technology Directors Association ("SETDA").
Last week, in a conference call with the staff of the FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau, SECA and SHLB jointly discussed their requests to provide additional broadband support both on- and off-campus during the pandemic (see SECA/SHLB ex parte letter of August 25th).
As a follow-up to this discussion, SECA submitted a supplemental analysis to the FCC estimating the need for an additional $69-103 million in E-rate support for expanded Internet services over and above approved and still pending applications for FY 2020. SECA's analysis was based on survey responses from more than 350 schools across 20 states indicating requirements for 10-15% increases in Internet expenditures, some of which have already been incurred.
SHLB, for its part, submitted an additional ex parte letter supporting the emergency measures to allow schools and libraries to obtain E-rate support for immediate bandwidth increases necessary to handle the growth of online learning. In addition to increased funding for FY 2020, both SECA and SHLB stressed the need for the FCC to adopt a streamlined process to obtain the additional E-rate support without going through the traditional competitive bidding process. SHLB also asked the FCC to adopt similar measures for Rural Healthcare participants to support the expansion of telehealth services.
E-Rate Central continues to support SECA's and SHLB's call for additional emergency E-rate funding during the COVID-19 crisis.