Schools Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition

The Schools, Health, and Libraries Broadband Coalition filed a letter on April 27, 2017 to express concern with the recent set of inquiries sent by Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to over 100 E-rate applicants seeking support for special construction costs for fiber installation. SHLB said the questions ask for information irrelevant to determining whether an application meets E-rate requirements and suggests new limitations on funding that were not contained in the 2014 E-rate Modernization Orders, the Federal Communications Commission’s rules or USAC’s training materials. SHLB encouraged the FCC and USAC to maintain the existing policies adopted in 2014 that promote competition and cost-effective fiber options for schools and libraries.

Rural areas have been left in the dust when it comes to staying up to speed in the digital age. Thirty-nine percent of rural Americans and 41 percent of tribal lands lack access to basic 25 Mpbs broadband service. Compare those numbers to only 4 percent of urban residents. To address this rural/urban digital divide, we recently hosted a webinar on “Partnerships and Rural Broadband Needs”. We have also crafted the Rural American Broadband Connectivity (Rural ABC) Program for the Trump Administration.

With rumors of an infrastructure bill in the works, the School Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition is preparing to participate actively in these debates. Please let us know if you would like to join our Coalition and support our advocacy for open, affordable, high-capacity broadband for anchor institutions and their communities. Together we can bring our rural communities up to speed.