Carr Circulates Proposals to Zero Out Wi-Fi Programs
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on Wednesday circulated two items targeting programs created under the Biden administration to fund Wi-Fi hot spots and Wi-Fi on school buses. Commissioner Anna Gomez immediately indicated she opposed cutting the programs, which have long been lightning rods for Republican objections.
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“Millions of students and seniors depend on hotspots and school bus Wi-Fi for homework and tele-health services,” Gomez said. “Now the FCC is moving to strip that connectivity away while doing nothing to make broadband more affordable. ... We must all fight back against this level of cruelty and indifference by this Administration.”
An FCC release said Carr's proposals “would reverse the agency’s unlawful, Biden-era decisions to expand COVID spending programs.”
The first item was a declaratory ruling that would reverse a 2023 ruling expanding the USF program to pay for connections on school buses (see 2310190056), the FCC said. Carr and former Commissioner Nathan Simington dissented at the time. Major industry players, including wireless carriers and NCTA, supported the move to fund school bus Wi-Fi through the E-rate program (see 2312010029).
Wednesday's ruling would “find that funding Wi-Fi on school buses both exceeds the FCC’s statutory authority and does not promote sound policy choices,” an FCC release said.
Last summer, commissioners approved 3-2 a draft order and Further NPRM that lets schools and libraries use E-rate support for off-premises Wi-Fi hot spots and wireless internet services. Carr and Simington dissented (see 2407180024). An order on reconsideration circulated Wednesday “finds that the FCC lacked legal authority for this expansion and that the agency failed to properly justify its decision.”
“I dissented from both decisions at the time," Carr said in the release. "I am now pleased to circulate these two items, which will end the FCC’s illegal funding [of] unsupervised screen time for young kids.”
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said in the FCC release that “the Biden FCC hotspot program endangered kids, duplicated existing federal funding, and violated the law.” He called on the House to move forward on a Congressional Review Act resolution that the Senate passed in May “overturning the illegal Biden hotspot rule.”
Supporters of both programs indicated that they had no advanced warning of Carr circulating the items Wednesday.
Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America, said it was “penny-wise but pound-foolish for the FCC to purposely widen the K-12 homework gap by defunding Wi-Fi on school buses and hot spots” used by low-income students. The change “harms all children, not just students without internet access at home, since surveys have consistently shown that teachers are reluctant to give homework that requires the internet if a significant share of students would need to sit in a McDonald’s parking lot to complete assignments.”
The reversal is “particularly cruel” to students whose families lost internet access when Congress failed to renew the affordable connectivity program, Calabrese said. “Carr also continues to be flat-out wrong” about whether the Telecom Act “gives the FCC authority to fund Wi-Fi internet connections for educational purposes both on and off campus.”
The Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition said Carr’s actions were disappointing. “Removing these connections ignores the reality that learning doesn’t stop at the school door or the library steps,” said Executive Director Joey Wender. “The Homework Gap predated the pandemic and will now, unfortunately, only widen as a result of this proposal.”
American Library Association President Sam Helmick said in an email that “students, adult learners, jobseekers, seniors and rural residents all need high-speed internet -- even after the library closes in the evening.” Taking away people's ability to check out Wi-Fi hot spots from their library “is a step backwards.”
But former Republican FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly said Carr was right to act. “I love Wi-Fi and kids but Chairman Carr … is completely correct to strike down these illegal and abusive misreadings of the law,” he said in an email. “If the FCC wants to expand the [Telecom Act], as the past commission did, go to Congress and make the case.”