The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced two moves that will limit Wi-Fi access for students and library patrons.
The first FCC move was a Declaratory Ruling that E-Rate funding for Wi-Fi on school buses is impermissible. The decision reverses a 2023 decision allowing such funding.
The ruling said that using E-Rate for such funding “both exceeds the FCC’s statutory authority and does not promote sound policy choices.”
The dismantling of the school bus Wi-Fi program began in early September, when FCC Chairman Brendan Carr introduced the declarative ruling. At the time, he said that the program had a record of “poor stewardship of scarce funds, and invited waste, fraud, and abuse.”
“The agency determined that the best reading of section 254 of the Communications Act of 1934, is that the use and provision of these services on school buses does not serve an ‘educational purpose’ as defined by E-Rate program rules and conflicts with the statute’s direction to enhance access to E-Rate-eligible services for classrooms and libraries.”
The second FCC move was an Order on Reconsideration that reverses a Biden-era move to enable students and library patrons to fund Wi-Fi hotspots that can be used outside libraries and schools. The rationale was that such funding “plainly exceeded the FCC’s authority, which Congress limited to funding connections at schools and libraries.”
“The Order on Reconsideration adopted today finds that the FCC lacked legal authority for this expansion and that the agency failed to properly justify its decision,” the press release said. “The prior agency action also represented unreasonable policy choices given the evidence in the record, poor stewardship of scarce funds, and invited waste, fraud, and abuse.”
In both FCC Wi-Fi cases, The Universal Service Administration Companywill be directed to deny pending funding requests for funding for 2025. The USAC manages the contribution of revenue to and distribution of funding from the Universal Service Fund (USF).
