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The Senate has voted to end a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that used federal funding to cover Wi-Fi hotspots that could be used outside of school and libraries. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The program, first implemented by former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, applied funds from the $2.6 billion federal E-Rate program to a program that enabled schools and libraries to provide free Wi-Fi hotspots to children and others with poor or no internet access at home. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
As Policyband <\/em>notes prior to a successful Senate procedural vote yesterday to take up the measure, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the rule \u201cviolates the Communications Act, which clearly limits the use of the funds in question to classrooms and libraries.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a statement last year<\/a>, Rosenworcel disagreed that the law doesn\u2019t support hotspot lending. Citing remote learning issues that were put in sharp relief by the covid pandemic, Rosenworcel wrote that while E-Rate had \u201coverwhelming success connecting schools and libraries,\u201d it needed to be modernized so that schools and libraries could \u201cloan out Wi-Fi hotspots to support high-speed internet access in rural America, urban America, and everything in between.\u201d She noted that the change could be accomplished \u201cwithin the existing E-Rate budget.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/div>\n The FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr, who opposed the hotspot lending program, has aggressively pulled back from consumer protection programs and turned into the Trump administration\u2019s de facto censorship arm<\/a>. GOP members of Congress have worked to rollback subsidies that help to increase US internet access, such as the FCC\u2019s Affordable Connectivity Program<\/a>, in the name of spending reduction. Citing a recent study in March, TechDirt <\/em>wrote that the \u201c$7\u2013$8 billion annual taxpayer cost of the program generated between $28.9 and $29.5 billion in savings thanks to expanded access to affordable internet and remote telehealth services.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a statement<\/a> released after the vote, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden<\/a>, said the vote will exacerbate economic disparities. \u201cThose with sufficient internet access are increasingly separated from those without, and this decision risks widening that gap even further,\u201d Gomez said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n