Federal E-Rate funds can be used to outfit school busses with Wi-Fi access points, the Federal Communications Commission has declared.
The declaratory ruling was supported by the Commission’s three Democrats, and opposed by its two Republicans. Commissioners Brendan Carr and Nathan Simington argued both that the FCC has no data indicating that money already spent to put Wi-Fi access points on school busses has been effective at connecting students, and also that using E-Rate funds for this purpose may violate the program’s legal purpose. Simington called the change “unlawful” and stated that “E-Rate may only be used to subsidize internet connectivity for elementary schools, secondary schools, and libraries, and a school bus is neither a school nor a library.”
Still, with the support of three commissioners, the clarification from the agency means that Wi-Fi on school busses, or “other similar technologies that act as an access point” is an “educational purpose” and therefore eligible for E-Rate funding, which is “consistent with the Commission’s past determinations regarding other eligible off-campus uses of E-Rate-supported services,” the ruling said.
The E-Rate program was established as the universal service funding mechanism to support the expansion of broadband services to eligible schools, libraries and consortia of schools and libraries. The FCC noted in its clarifying ruling that it has made the determination in the past that use of mobile services—such as telecommunications use for bus drivers, or a mobile library unit—were eligible educational purposes and could be supported by E-Rate funding, and thus the addition of Wi-Fi APs was in line with precedent.
“Over the course of the program’s existence, the Commission has received requests from E-Rate stakeholders asking that the services and equipment that enable access to Wi-Fi on school buses be made eligible for E-Rate funding to enhance broadband access to students who may not have reliable access outside of school, and these requests have intensified over the last few years,” the ruling said, adding that this has been in part because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but “also because many students who do not have broadband connectivity at home could use the school bus Wi-Fi to complete homework and other assignments while traveling to and from school.”
