Current E-rate funding is “not sufficient” and the...
Current E-rate funding is “not sufficient” and the FCC should go beyond indexing program funding to inflation and make “sizeable additional investments in a program that has only grown in importance in the 18 years since it was established,” said…
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Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, and Portland, Oregon, Mayor Charlie Hales in a letter to Chairman Tom Wheeler Monday. The letter was provided to us by Best Best attorney Gerry Lederer, who represents Boston and whose firm represents Los Angeles and Portland. Los Angeles also supports a “meaningful increase in overall funding” for the program, Mayor Eric Garcetti wrote in a separate letter to Wheeler and FCC commissioners provided by Lederer. All those mayors are Democrats, except Hales, whose office is nonpartisan. Members of the U.S. Conference of Mayors met in New York City Aug. 11 to form a Cities of Opportunities Task Force, with New York’s de Blasio named chairman and Boston’s Walsh, vice chairman, said the letter from Boston, New York and Portland mayors. The task force backed strategies to “achieve digital equity and avoid educational disparity,” including ensuring that broadband services are available to lower-income residents and startup businesses; backing federal programs that bolster technological innovation and provide tech job opportunities for low-income people and minorities, and dealing with inequality in school systems, the letter said. Education interests and libraries are urging more E-rate funding but are running into opposition from telcos (CD Sept 18 p11).