The FCC has announced commitments totaling $169,207,501.79 in the fifth wave of the $7.17 billion Emergency Connectivity Fund program. The funding could connect more than 500,000 students in 47 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
The fifth wave includes funding for 380,000 connected devices and more than 135,000 broadband connections. It will support 492 schools, 70 libraries and 10 consortia.
The program is aimed at ameliorating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides funds for connectivity and equipment for use for homework and virtual learning in off-campus scenarios. It is administered by schools and libraries. So far, the program has committed more than $3.2 billion and provided broadband connectivity for approximately 10.6 million students and more than 7.1 million connected devices and nearly 3.5 million broadband connections. Recipient organizations include 7,535 schools, 692 libraries and 91 consortia.
California is the biggest winner in the fifth wave of FCC Emergency Connectivity funding with commitments totaling $25,550,373.57. The smallest amount was committed to Nebraska, at $21,945.42. Delaware, Guam, Hawaii, the Virgin Islands and Wyoming got no commitments in this wave.
To date, the state that has benefited most is New York, with comments of $415,022,259.52. The Virgin Islands had the least level of commitment at $33,077.60.
This FCC Emergency Connectivity Fund wave was the smallest to date in the program. The largest – the first – was about $1.2 billion. The second was about $1.16 billion. The fourth was about $421.5 million and the third about $269 million, about $100 million more than the fifth..
The first funding wave was announced in late September. The FCC committed to support 3,081,131 devices and 774,115 broadband connections capable of connecting more than 3.6 million students.
Several weeks earlier, the FCC said it would open a second application window and that the applications in the first window totaled $5.137 billion.
