News of the Week

FY 2020:

Wave 42 for FY 2020 was released on Thursday, February 11th, for a total of $55.0 million.  Cumulative commitments are $2.23 billion.  Nationwide, USAC has now funded 97% of the FY 2020 applications representing 81% of the requested funding.

FY 2021:

USAC opened the FY 2021 Form 471 application window on Friday, January 15th.  The window will close on Thursday, March 25th, at 11:59 p.m. EDT.  For additional information on the FY 2021 application window, see the USAC Special Edition Schools and Libraries News Brief dated December 22, 2020.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, February 16th, is the deadline for submitting:

• Reply comments on Docket 20-445, Establishment of the Emergency Broadband Benefit (“EBB”) Program.
• Initial comments on Docket 21-31, Addressing the Homework Gap through the E-Rate Program.

As discussed most recently in our newsletter of February 8th and in our webinar of February 10th, both dockets concern programs of direct interest to schools and libraries.  We encourage broad participation in the comment process if only to file express comments as described in both our newsletter and webinar.  In our view, the two key issues deserving comment are as follows:

• The $3.2 billion EBB program will provide discounts up to $50/month ($75/month in Tribal areas) during the pandemic on internet services for eligible low-income families — most importantly those with students requiring access for remote learning.  As discussed in the Public Notice (DA 21-6), EBB discounts would flow through the internet providers for any eligible subscribers.  The Notice does not recognize the efforts already undertaken by many schools (and libraries) to establish and pay for internet service for equally eligible families.  An FCC roundtable held last Friday had not a single panelist representing a school or library.
  
  In all fairness, and as a means to more quickly and efficiently meet the goals of the program, discounts should apply to multi-family internet subscriptions arranged by schools or libraries serving as EBB anchor institutions.  Express comments, even those simply indicating the importance of EBB funding for existing or prospective plans to provide internet services to needy families, are needed to ensure that the final EBB rules best meet the program’s goals.

• The FCC’s Public Notice (DA 21-98) on E-rate and remote learning, based largely on a petition filed by SHLB, requests comments on possible changes in eligibility and/or the treatment of equipment and services to provide off-campus internet, at least for the duration of the pandemic.  One key issue concerns the current FCC rule requiring any applicant extending internet service off-campus to cost allocate out as ineligible a portion of its internet charges.  Currently, as such, FCC E-rate rules not only exclude funding for off-campus internet, but penalize any applicant providing such usage by reducing funding for an applicant’s otherwise eligible internet service.  To the extent that the FCC may provide additional — albeit presumably limited — E-rate funding to permit schools and libraries to extend their internet coverage off-campus during the pandemic (e.g., with wireless towers), the cost allocation requirement must be eliminated.
  
  Two simple points that might be made in express comments (or in slightly more detail during the very short, one-week period, provided for reply comments due February 23rd) might be:

• • If off-campus facilities are installed using special E-rate pandemic funding, it would appear illogical and unnecessary to reimpose the cost allocation requirement post-pandemic.
  • Rather than bank on another FCC Public Notice (see following article), it could be noted that remote learning exasperated the need for better broadband cybersecurity measures that should become E-rate eligible.

Having witnessed how quickly a petition for E-rate funding in support of remote learning led to a follow-on FCC Public Notice (see our newsletter of February 8th), there is hope that the FCC might also move forward expeditiously on a companion petition filed last week by the Consortium for School Networking (“CoSN”) et al.  The CoSN petition seeks FCC declaratory relief and rulemaking to allow additional use of E-rate funds for K-12 cybersecurity.  CoSN asks the FCC to:

1. Define all firewall and related features as “basic” beginning in FY 2021;
2. Increase the five-year Category 2 budget cap in future funding years to support additional cybersecurity investments; and
3. Update the agency’s broadband definition to include cybersecurity.

It should be noted that one easy step the FCC could take, incurring little or no additional E-rate funding, would be to simply make cybersecurity equipment and services eligible within the existing Category 2 budget limitations.  At the very least, this would provide applicants with additional flexibility in the use of their Category 2 budgets.

To truly address applicant cybersecurity needs, however, the CoSN petition includes estimates of additional Category 2 budget requirements required over the next five years.  Detailed estimates, based on an analysis by Funds For Learning, were calculated for the following three levels of protection:

• $0.738 billion to support next-generation firewalls;
• $1.606 billion to support next-generation firewalls and endpoint security features; or
• $2.389 billion to support all layers of protection including “advanced+ services” such as multi-factor authentication.

Assuming the “new” FCC is receptive to expanding cybersecurity eligibility, it could issue another Public Notice requesting comments.  Alternatively, as suggested above, the FCC might consider cybersecurity and remote learning in a combined rulemaking.

Upcoming E-Rate Dates:

Closing Education’s Digital Divide:

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Common Sense Media, in partnership with EducationSuperHighway and Southern Education Foundation (SEF) has released a new report entitled “LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD: What it will take to permanently close the K-12 digital divide.”  The report provides:

…detailed quantitative analyses of three root causes: affordability, availability, and adoption.  Our analysis finds that up to 60% of disconnected K–12 students (9 million students), especially Black and urban students, are unable to afford digital access. Up to 25% of disconnected students (4 million) lack access to readily available and reliable broadband service, a barrier that disproportionately affects rural and Native American students. Finally, up to 40% of disconnected students (6 million) face significant adoption barriers, such as insufficient digital literacy or language barriers.

The report also estimates the cost of closing this digital divide concluding:

Closing the student digital divide will require between $6 billion and $11 billion in the first year and between $4 billion and $8 billion annually thereafter, to address affordability and adoption gaps. In addition, closing the digital divide for teachers will cost approximately $1 billion in its first year. These costs cover installation, ongoing service fees, devices, repairs, and support for internet connectivity and e-learning devices. Moreover, additional funding is needed to ensure universal deployment of broadband infrastructure capable of 100/100 Mbps. While prior analyses estimated that it would cost $10 billion to $20 billion at the low end and $80 billion at the high end to expand broadband infrastructure, these assessments did not fully account for costs related to home access to adequate speeds and ongoing maintenance to ensure sustainable, universal broadband access.

USAC’s Schools and Libraries News Brief of February 12, 2021, poses and answers a number of questions from the eligible services webinars that USAC conducted earlier this year.  The questions, with an abbreviated summary of the answers (please read the News Brief for details), are: