FCC Delays, Denials Foil Rural Schools' Broadband Plans

Hundreds of state and local efforts to connect rural and remote schools to fiber-optic networks have been delayed or rejected by federal officials during the past two years, jeopardizing the push to bring high-speed internet to the country's hardest-to-connect classrooms. Broadband proponents say the problems stem from confusing barriers erected by the Federal Communications Commission and the Universal Service Administrative Company, which oversee and administer the E-rate, a $3.9 billion program to help schools and libraries pay for internet access and other telecommunications services. "If the commission really wants to close the digital divide, they should be rolling out the red carpet for these fiber projects," said Evan Marwell, CEO of the nonprofit advocacy group EducationSuperHighway. "Instead, they are rolling out the red tape."

Under former President Barack Obama, the Democrat-led FCC overhauled the E-rate in 2014, raising the program's spending cap and shifting its focus to broadband and Wi-Fi. Included in the changes were new "special construction" rules intended to help rural and remote schools that fall outside of telecommunications companies' existing service areas, by letting them use federal dollars to build or lease new high-speed fiber-optic networks. In 2016, 426 applicants to the E-rate program sought such special-construction funds, according to an analysis of public E-rate data by Funds for Learning, a consulting group that helps thousands of schools and libraries seeking E-rate funds. But more than half of those applications were denied, compared with less than 4 percent of E-rate applications overall, the group found.