Less than one week after releasing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to provide E-rate funding for Wi-Fi hotspots and services for students and library patrons without access to internet at home (see our newsletter of November 13th), the FCC released another NPRM (FCC 23-92) announcing a three-year cybersecurity pilot program. The original concept for an E-rate cybersecurity pilot was first proposed by Funds For Learning last November as a plan to put aside $60 million per year, for three years, in Category 2 funding for advanced firewalls.
What the FCC has proposed is quite different in scope but equivalent in scale. It is being structured as a true pilot program designed to test and compare different approaches to school and library cybersecurity. The program will be funded up to $200 million over a three-year period with Universal Service Funds. Although not directly funded within E-rate, the pilot will apparently utilize many of the E-rate and ECF-like forms and procedures.
Key aspects of the pilot program, to be more fully developed through the upcoming comment process, will apparently include the following:
- Schools and libraries will apply for pilot program participation by filing a new Form 484. Conceptually, the Form 484 can be viewed as a grant application for the pilot. Once accepted into the program, participation will be for the entire three-year period. Annual re-applications will not be required. Successful applicants will be required to propose specific cybersecurity test plans, ideally leveraging other federal cyber resources, that can be tested over the three-year period.
- Equipment and services provided to pilot participants must be procured, approved, and funded in an E-rate manner using new forms that mirror E-rate’s Forms 470, 471, 472, and 474. Invoicing and appeal deadlines will unfortunately track the shorter ECF schedules.
- Annual and final progress reports will be required “detailing use of funds and effectiveness of the programs.”
Comments on the NPRM will be due within 30 days after its publication in the Federal Register. Reply comments will be due another 30 days thereafter. Based on this schedule, we would not expect to see a final order until at least March of next year perhaps with a 60-day application period opening in the Spring.