FCC Approves $7B Broadband Connectivity Fund

The US Federal Communications Commission has unanimously approved the final rules to implement the $7.17 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund Program. The FCC program will provide funding for schools and libraries across the country to buy laptops, tablets, Wi-Fi hotspots and broadband connections to help students and teachers to access the internet for online learning during the pandemic. From a report: The program is part of President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. It also follows the FCC approving a plan in February to administer $3.2 billion in emergency relief to subsidize broadband for millions of Americans during the pandemic. That program will provide $50 per month to low-income households and $75 per month to households on Native American lands to cover the cost of broadband services starting May 12. It also provides $100 toward buying a laptop or tablet. "Between this Emergency Connectivity Fund Program and the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program, we are investing more than $10 billion in American students and households," Jessica Rosenworcel, acting chairwoman of the FCC, said in a statement Monday. "These investments will help more Americans access online education, healthcare and employment resources. They will help close the homework gap for students nationwide."

Well...

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

colour me cynical but I feel this money is going to go right into the pockets of large scale corps and little, if any progress will be made for the intended purpose.

Re:Well...

[BeerFartMoron]

Yeah, overpriced 3G hotspots! Five year old Chromebooks at Precision prices! Same old ADSL connections! We've accomplished nothing and it only cost $7,170,000,000.00! We thought of the children!

Exactly!

[King_TJ]

Given past history and a plethora of existing programs to assist people in getting a budget-priced computer, this seems like the inevitable outcome.

Give low income people $100 towards a laptop or tablet? If they can't afford a decent used one before that, they're not any better off with $100 off of the price of a new one. (You can find perfectly good, 1-2 year old hardware for sale all the time on sites like Craigslist or Facebook marketplace for less than 1/2 its price when it was new. That means you can o

Re: Exactly!

[flyingfsck]

You can typically buy old computers at your city landfill for about $50. There is always someone who rescues old kit from the dump.

Re:

[Growlley]

going to be some might fine Appalachian red neck oppiod parties soon.

Re:

[See Attached]

Great! Lets hear about their ideas! Some will likely resonate!

Re:

[SirSlud]

I don't think it's cynical but I do it's an intellectually lazy conclusion that requires no deference to messy reality. there's a ton of information available online about it .. but I get the inclination to see things this way, because complicated answers with no binary answer are not very satisfying

Re:

[Powercntrl]

little, if any progress will be made for the intended purpose.

Well, yeah, unless it includes the invention of time travel, there's no way it will be useful for its intended purpose. Kids are getting vaccinated, schools are opening back up, and people are going back to work. This bill sounds like something that is a year late.

Re:

[khchung]

colour me cynical but I feel this money is going to go right into the pockets of large scale corps and little, if any progress will be made for the intended purpose.

But but but... THIS TIME will be different! /s

Re:

[nazsco]

True.
I just read the bill(? DOC-372069A1.pdf) to see if I could pivot it into a national cooperative of local cooperatives.

but they managed to include:
"""
35. [...] we exclude from eligibility [...] construction of new networks, including the construction of self-provisioned networks. In so doing, we agree with commenters [Lobbyist?] that [...] Emergency Connectivity Fund Program support to construct new networks or self-provisioned networks is inconsistent with Congress' intent to fund "the purchase" of bro

Fees

[backslashdot]

By the way, I hate to ask an awkward question, but what happened to all the money you got from the fees tacked on to my cell phone bill?

Re:

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

well, it went to someone's pockets, just not the ones it was supposed to go to.

Can FCC help with audio levels on TV shows?

[See Attached]

You turn up the volume to hear the audio channel on a fav program. then a commercial comes up at 2x volume. Every one gets upset. Has this happened to you?

Re:

[Rockoon]

whats a tv show?

Re:

[awwshit]

whats a commercial?

Haven't we done this already?

[John Napkintosh]

Don't we just end up giving billions of dollars to telcos to expand broadband into rural and low-income communities and bring service up to a higher standard, except it never actually happens and then the money is gone and no one asks for it back?

Re:

[nazsco]

yes. 5bi the first time, and then when investigations showed they used zero dollars to do what they promissed, ajit and pals punished them with 2bi more.

Not really a bad thing.

[bjwest]

Not all the monies are going to the large Telco's. I'm in Arkansas in a small town of around 10 thousand or so. My cousin lives in the sticks on a road about five or six miles long with three or four houses on it. The cable companies push into the rural area bypassed his road due to the lack of potential customers. Well, here we are three years later and the electric coop that serves the area is laying fiber with up to 1GB both ways at about half the cost of what I can get with only 750GB down 150 or something like that up. Not only that, but the my uncles camp out on the river, miles from the nearest house has fiber as well because it was cheaper to route it along the existing road than try to cut a ditch through the bottoms. A fucking fishing camp has better and faster internet than I do, and you can bet your ass Suddenlink will not be laying fiber anytime soon in this rinky dink town.

'Teacher, I don't feel tardy...'

[kackle]

to access the internet for online learning during the pandemic.

Not that I'm for this expenditure, I'm not, but this exemplifies "closing the barn door after the horse has escaped".

Re:

[Ostracus]

Funding Starlink which just came out after the barn had burned down.

benefits for schools and libraries

[papaleos]

It's critical. Because the fund aims at closing the homework gap and provides libraries and schools with new opportunities (broadband connectivity, laptops, tablets). Read more on mediasourceinc.com or buy dissertation [theessayservice.org] written by a librarian and writer, Gary Price, featured in Library Journal.

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