USAC Computer Systems Need ‘Complete Rebuild’ for Better Fund Management, FCC Managing Director Says
The Universal Service Administrative Co. computer systems are not up to the task of effectively making available all the data it receives on E-rate demand and what services cost for various schools and libraries, panelists at a Schools, Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition event said Thursday. This makes it hard for school administrators and librarians to ensure they're getting the “lowest corresponding price” on services, panelists and audience members said. Panelists also expressed frustration at the political compromises that led to a Priority 2 funding system that has run out of money.
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The pro-technology group Education Superhighway has been asking schools and libraries to send out all their “Item 21” information, which describes the products and services for which discounts are being sought, said Bob Bocher of the American Library Association. “Why does a separate 501(c)(3) have to ask individual schools” -- thousands nationwide -- for this data, which is already available to USAC, Bocher asked. “The follow-up corollary, obviously, is why isn’t USAC doing this themselves?"
"I asked those same questions,” responded Jon Wilkins, FCC acting managing director. USAC “does good work” but its IT systems are “in need of complete rebuild and reinvestment,” Wilkins said. Looking at distribution of who is paying what for, say, 100 megabit service around the country, and trying to understand why costs are what they are, has been “making a difference” in the commission’s thinking, Wilkins said.
The FCC routinely asks schools and libraries to check with telecom carriers about whether they're meeting the “lowest corresponding price” requirement, Bocher said. FCC rules prohibit service providers from charging E-rate applicants a price above what they would charge non-E-rate customers for the same services. The very concept of asking E-rate applicants to check on that is “not realistic” because “we don’t have that information,” said audience member Sheryl Abshire, chief technology officer of the Calcasieu Parish School System in Lake Charles, Louisiana. “We should be able to click on a state and click on all of the Item 21s from the entities in that state, and look by vendor what we're being charged and what other people are being charged,” Abshire said. “Right now I have no idea what a school district five minutes away from me is being charged for the same contract that I have in place,” she said. USAC’s “archaic system” that doesn’t let applicants see what other applicants pay is “very, very problematic for us,” she said.
The FCC wants to try to make that process as efficient and clear as possible, Wilkins said, but the E-rate program requires that there be high standards for compliance. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has talked about the idea of much stronger oversight and enforcement “not because he wants to burden applicants but because he wants the program to have strong support,” Wilkins said: It’s important to appreciate the “collaborative effort” needed on that.
"We set up the program in the wrong way for political expediency, and we're now suffering because of that,” said Jeff Campbell, Cisco senior director-technology. “Five years into the program or so, we all saw what was going to happen,” he said: Priority 2 services, which fund internal connections, was “crowded out.” Now there’s no money available for Priority 2 services for the current year, he said. Given longstanding underinvestment in the internal networks, the best place to invest for a short term solution is in internal connections, while looking for a long term solution about where the program needs to be in terms of funding, Campbell said, as Wilkins nodded in agreement.