White House: FCC Raising E-rate Cap Is Essential

The White House Wednesday called the FCC proposal to raise the E-rate cap by $1.5 billion an "essential step" in the President's ConnectED initiative.

That shout out for FCC chairman Tom Wheeler's proposed revamp of E-rate, which the chairman outlined to reporters earlier this week came in an e-mail from the White House about a day-long White House event Wednesday, where the President met with educators from across the country to talk about that ConnectED initiative, whose goal is to connect 99% of students to high-speed broadband via schools and libraries.

Citing the FCC, the White House said that "68% of school districts report that not a single school in their district can meet high-speed connectivity goals."

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John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.