E-Rate Rule Published

The final rule has been published in the Federal Register addressing matters related to the eligibility of products and services under the E-rate program.

The Commission has modified its rules to expressly include interconnected VoIP and text messaging as eligible services under the E-rate program. Second, in the process of releasing the list of services that will be eligible for discounts for E-rate funding year 2010, the Commission has clarified the E-rate program eligibility of video on-demand servers, ethernet, web hosting, wireless local area network (LAN) controllers, and virtualization software.

These changes go into effect May 7.