The E-rate program “simply needs more money,” said...
The E-rate program “simply needs more money,” said Jon Bernstein, president of the Jon Bernstein Strategy Group and co-chair of the Education and Library Networks Coalition. The current demand of more than $5 billion is actually “tamped down demand” because…
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a lot of schools don’t even apply for Priority 2 funding for internal connections, as they know they won’t get it, Bernstein said at the Comptel Plus conference Wednesday. The likely demand is probably closer to $8 billion, he said. Asking for the true demand would be a nonstarter, he said, so his coalition is pushing hard for an initial increase in the E-rate cap to $5 billion. He conceded “we don’t talk about the mechanics” of how that will happen. “We are not telling them how to get there,” he said of the FCC, but when the agency wants to raise money for other USF programs, “they do what they need to do on people’s phone bills.” Bernstein estimated that adding 40-50 cents a month to telephone consumers’ bills would raise enough money to double the cap. FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told us last week that raising the cap “certainly merits a discussion” (CD Sept 23 p3).