Experts Analyze Court Ruling Against E-Rate Funding Source

A recent federal court ruling is unlikely to mean the permanent end of the E-rate program that funds school telecommunication services, but the program's future is still uncertain. On a recent webinar, attorneys Sean Lev and Andy Schwartzman emphasized the recent ruling will have no near-term effects on E-rate. However, it does create uncertainty about the funding source for the program in the future. The case against the Federal Communications Commission was spearheaded by conservative non-profit Consumers’ Research. Prior to the Fifth Circuit decision, Consumers’ Research brought the same case to two other circuit courts, both of which ruled in favor of the FCC, maintaining that the funding mechanism for Universal Service Fund is constitutional. “The distribution of the money and the existing programs are reasonably well accepted and reasonably popular, and I don’t think that there will be major, major changes in any kind of legislation or what the FCC does as to how those programs operate going forward,” Schwartzman said. “I would assume E-rate will be alive and well for a long time to come one way or another.”