The FCC’s plan to provide about $132 million through the federal E-rate program to rebuild schools and libraries destroyed in the hurricanes should be considered carefully in light of the program’s history of “waste, fraud and abuse” uncovered, said House Commerce Oversight Subcommittee Chmn. Whitfield (R-Ky.). “We want to explore ways to improve this program,” he said. The committee today (Fri.) plans to vote on releasing a report that caps over a year’s work including information from 4 hearings examining abuse in the program. House Commerce Committee Chmn. Barton (R-Tex.) has long been a critic of the program, last year calling for a wholesale restructuring and audit into the $2.5 billion fund to see whether it’s actually needed.

Four rural telecom bodies have allied to strengthen their lobbying power as Congress eyes policy changes on issues such as universal service. At a news conference Thurs., members of the Coalition to Keep America Connected said the impending Telecom Act revision spurred creation of the group, made up of the Independent Telephone & Telecom Alliance, NTCA, OPASTCO and the Western Telecom Alliance.

Rural telecom firms face a significant choice as a result of FCC deregulation of wireline Internet access (CD Aug 8 p1), panelists said on a USTelecom Webinar conference Tues. The order lets rural telecoms decide if their DSL service is to be treated as a regulated common carrier service or as a generally unregulated private carriage offering -- and that’s a major decision that can’t be made “off the top of the head,” said Carol Mattey, formerly at the FCC Wireline Bureau and now a Deloitte & Touche dir.

Search giant Yahoo and PC maker Hewlett-Packard are at work on a permanent online archive of multilingual text and multimedia content, the firms revealed Mon. The announcement came as rival Google continues to battle with publishers over its year-old Google Print Library Project and the European Commission vows to launch its own digitization project.

The U.S. wireless telecom services industry has “enormously” contributed to the U.S. economy and needs a hands-off regulatory treatment to maintain a successful growth, speakers said at a CTIA event Mon. to release a study. In 2004, the wireless industry generated $118 billion revenue, and contributed $92 billion to the GDP, said the study by Ovum for CTIA.

The available support is a “great benefit,” according to more than 90% of Universal Service Fund (USF) Schools & Libraries Program participants, USAC said. Only 6% said their school or library gets “some benefit;” 1% said there is “no benefit,” USAC said. The data were amassed by a USAC program launched in Jan. to learn now to improve USF by visiting and talking with recipients. Participants rely on USF for public safety, better communications between faculty and parents, distance learning, readying students for state-mandated tests and acquiring new technologies, USAC said. “Some school officials also have expressed that without USF support, their schools would not be able to meet the federal requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act,” USAC said.

The Universal Service Administrative Co. (USAC) will fund internal connections, like routers and network links, in funding year 2005, for school and library applicants eligible for 90% discounts, USAC said. Telecom services and Internet access (Priority One services) get highest priority for available funding under FCC rules. Once demand for Priority One funding is calculated, USAC allocates remaining funds to support internal connections (Priority Two), starting with the most economically disadvantaged schools and libraries.

The 4 proposals to modify the rules governing high- cost universal service support by the FCC’s Joint Board on Universal Service didn’t received much support in comments filed with the FCC Fri.

The “digital divide” is a growing problem that Congress must not ignore as it takes up DTV legislation and a rewrite of telecom laws, civil rights groups said at a panel Tues. “The digital divide is clearly large, and it’s not disappearing soon, and it’s much larger for children than adults,” said Robert Fairlie, prof., U. of Cal.-Santa Cruz. Blacks and Latinos are much less likely than white, non-Latinos to have access to home computers (50.6% and 48.7% compared to 74.6%), Fairlie said, citing a recent study he did for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. They're also less likely to have Internet access at home (40.5% and 38.1% compared to 67.3%).

The “digital divide” is a growing problem that Congress must not ignore as it takes up DTV legislation and a rewrite of telecom laws, civil rights groups said at a panel Tues. “The digital divide is clearly large, and it’s not disappearing soon, and it’s much larger for children than adults,” said Robert Fairlie, prof., U. of Cal.-Santa Cruz. Blacks and Latinos are much less likely than white, non-Latinos to have access to home computers (50.6% and 48.7% compared to 74.6%), Fairlie said, citing a recent study he did for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund. They're also less likely to have Internet access at home (40.5% and 38.1% compared to 67.3%).