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Reported at The Register
Under the e-rate program run by the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, schools that do not have access to a fiber network supplied by the main cable companies can apply for federal funds to build or lease such a network, and so supply much faster internet access to their students.
[...] However, an analysis of the more than 800 applications for "special construction" by a company that provides e-rate consulting services, Funds for Learning, has shown an extraordinarily high failure rate of requests for funding, often for very minor reasons. As one example, 25 applications were denied by USAC because additional details requested by the company were not submitted by the applicants within a 28-day time limit – a rule that schools were almost certainly not aware of.
[...] But schools are always short of funds and so this year, more schools applied and more of them hired specialist consultants to dot the i's and cross the t's in the applications process, learning from previous rejections. The result has been an extraordinary increase in the number of "pending" applications. In fact, of 401 applications this year for special construction, just one per cent have been approved so far, five per cent have been denied, and a staggering 94 per cent remain in limbo.
[...] What seasoned FCC observers suspect however is that the schools' effort to get fast and stable internet access has hits the rocks of Pai's extraordinary subservience to large cable companies. For years, the large cable companies have responded extremely aggressively to any efforts by others to build fiber networks, even drafting and passing legislation in multiple state capitals that have shut down efforts for municipal broadband networks.
[...] The rules allowing schools to apply for funding for new fiber networks was introduced by the FCC under Pai's predecessor as a way to force the issue. But as with many of the Obama-era rules, Pai has set about either scrapping them or, if getting rid of them would be politically difficult, undermining them through bureaucratic changes.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 29 2017, @06:30PM
That's the thing about him, and really most of the other Trump appointees, they're usually not so much incompetent as purposefully corrupt. Pai knows damn well that what he's doing isn't good for the American people, but since it's good for his previous and future employers he does it anyways.
Really, one of the things we need is some sort of a limitation on people moving back and forth between major corporations and the agencies that regulate them.
Most of the issues that we face in the US aren't anywhere near as complicated as they seem, it's just that special interests spend tons of money trying to confuse the voters about the solutions. In terms of broadband policy, the solution there is pretty straightforward, come down hard on any and all ISPs that are taking money to expand access and not expanding access. Come down hard on any municipality or region that restricts access to ISPs that are refusing to compete with each other.
You'd be amazed at how much progress we could make if we actually tried. It's certainly not going to be easy getting the last mile into middle of nowhere, but we shouldn't have towns that are without proper coverage.