No. 3
October 23, 1996
A news and information digest for those working to
preserve and provide
access to cultural heritage resources through networked digital
technology.
By next May, the FCC will rule on how the country will assist schools and public libraries in paying for telecommunications services.
The Snowe-Rockefeller-Kerrey amendment to the new Telecommunications Act mandated discounted rates for K-12 schools, public libraries and rural health care providers but did not spell out the details.
The FCC has called for comments twice this year on which services should be included under discounted rates and how the program would be implemented. A Federal-State Joint Board has been charged to make recommendations to the FCC, based on these comments, by November 7. The eight-person board, organized to design the implementation of the Universal Service policies in the new Telecommunications Act comprises three FCC officials, four state utility commissioners and Missouri's public counsel as consumer representative.
One of the most popular, yet contentious, proposals before the Board is for an "E" (for Education) rate. Rep. Edward Markey (D-MA) first proposed this as a simple free rate for schools and public libraries, in April 1996, but it has now been considerably elaborated.
The proposal has two tiers: for basic and advanced telecommunications services. The basic package would include telephone service and a T1 Internet connection. Any school district in this tier would create a technology plan to incorporate basic telephone and Internet services into the curriculum. The district would then solicit bids from local telecommunications providers to fulfill the needs outlined in the plan. The winning bid would be the one combining the best functionality and price. Monies from the Universal Service Fund (USF) would support the cost of installation of the telephone wire and the monthly charges for the services.
The second tier addresses more advanced and special services, allowing schools and libraries to be eligible for discounts reflecting "the best available commercial rate." Videoconferencing, for example, would be an advanced service that a school or library could receive at the lowest price a provider charges its biggest customers. Although there would be no support from the USF in this tier, those schools and libraries in high-cost and low-income areas would receive deeper discounts for advanced services that would be paid for from the Fund.
Full details of the E-rate are available on the NTIA Web Site
President Clinton strongly supports this proposal, declaring it a "big deal," ( New York Times, Oct 21, D 5 ; ), as does FCC chairman, Reed Hundt and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. The NTIA's comments, submitted to the FCC October 10, outlining a framework for implementing the E-Rate, are available on-line.
This summer, Vice President Gore and Education Secretary Riley went further in calling for a free package of services to include e-mail, Internet access and video conferencing.
According to FARNET, comments received by the FCC on which services should be eligible for discounts ranged from the U.S. Telephone Association's refusal to countenance anything other than current "Plain Old Telephone Service" to the American Library Association's call for "any telecommunications service offered commercially under tariff or through contract."
Regarding the issue of whether inside wiring of K-12 schools should be included, comments again were somewhat predictable. Industry was generally opposed, while the American Library Association felt that everything should be considered, including "ancillary modifications to permit installation." However, most providers of inside wiring will not be telecommunications providers and would thus not be eligible for reimbursement from the Universal Service Fund. The chances of this provision's inclusion in the Board's recommendations seem slim.
Another contentious issue was the resale prohibition of the Act, which could prevent school districts from sharing networks or extending access to public libraries and other community groups.
Finally, there are several questions about mechanisms for distributing discounts, ways of determining discounts and whether deeper discounts should be granted economically disadvantaged schools.
The Benton Foundation has compiled useful "Summaries of Comments Filed in Universal Service Proceedings on Universal Service." The complete comments can be downloaded from the FCC web site
The Administration estimates that the cost of providing telecommunications access to schools and libraries would be $2.5 billion spread over five years. Currently, the discounts would be paid for by telephone companies who would pass the costs on to their customers: $6 a year for the average phone bill, according to the Consumer Federation of America ( New York Times, Oct 21, D 5 )
Congressman Major Owens (D-NY), in testimony before the Joint Board, pointed out that this was less than the price of one aircraft carrier and was probably not out-of-line with the country's investment in the development of the intercontinental railroad. These estimates include the current cost of T1 lines and other services that could dramatically drop with the increased demand of 110,000 schools and 16,000 libraries. The Benton Foundation reminds us that these estimates are dwarfed by the current Universal Service Fund and access fee support for local phone systems, estimated at between $5 and $18 billion a year
Nicholas von Hoffman (The Architectural Digest, Oct. 96, p. 130) considers this sum to be equivalent to that spent by Andrew Carnegie during the great library building period. However, apart from capital costs there are the costs of sustainability and of user support. According to a senior vice president of the New York Public Library's Research Libraries, "our equipment is on a three-year, six-thousand- dollar replacement cycle. If people are using things like the World Wide Web, we need one staff member out on the floor for every 20 workstations in use... Right now we have 250 workstations for the public, so one staff member for every 20 workstations becomes a major investment." (Edupage, Sept. 17)
FARNET considers it likely that the Joint Board will recommend conservative action to the FCC, even though the education and library community are pressing for more expansive movement. One consideration is that the Act requires discounts only from "telecommunications providers," common carrier providers, not Internet Service Providers or cable companies, for example, and only common carriers have much chance of being reimbursed for the discount from the Universal Service Fund.
Sources, FARNET, July 12; New York Times Oct 21 D5; Benton Foundation; Edupage
In an effort to broaden the constituency of those most likely to respond to the FCC's request for comments , Information Renaissance recently organized an experimental five-week online seminar on Universal Service/Network Democracy. Information Renaissance is a Pittsburgh based nonprofit that promotes the development of regional networking infrastructure in support of education, community development and economic revitalization.
The point of the exercise was to educate, galvanize and involve more on-the-ground practitioners in the FCC comments process. As the organizers put it: "By surveying individual participants we have come to the conclusion that our group represents over 2000 person- years of networking experience. This probably represents a greater level of networking expertise than was contained in the hundreds of industry-sponsored submissions to the FCC on the subject of Universal Service."
Initial feedback indicates that it is important to continue such educational activity to ensure that Federal officials developing rules for implementing Universal Service have access to the opinions of those who are engaged with telecommunications technology in local schools and libraries. A similar seminar may well take place at the time of the release of the Joint Board's comments, when there will again be time for public comments.
Information Renaissance organizers point out that there will be a mandated review of the success of the Telecommunications Act in providing advanced services to schools and librarians and public discussion of this topic could be invaluable in helping the FCC to ascertain what has happened in the field.
As a supplement to the FCC's efforts and the E-Rate campaign, NetDay is an opportunity for corporations and ordinary citizens to volunteer and to work together to wire all the nation's classrooms.
The first NetDay occurred in California, March 9, 1996, when over 20,000 volunteers and 200 businesses installed six million feet of wire to connect classrooms in 2,600 schools. Throughout the entire month of March 4,000 schools were wired, leaving 9,000 still to be completed in California).
National NetDay96 was launched September 26. This fall the goal is to connect five schoolrooms and the library in every school. There are actually several NetDays--different series of Saturdays running from September through November. Each state has a home-page, accessed from a clickable map on the national NetDay page. Follow-up appears generally well-organized: each school is encouraged to keep its own on-line NetDay diary and build a technology plan (entirely consonant with the FCC's plans).
California has an extraordinary zoomable organizing map used for its second NetDay on October 12. "The First Visual Accounting of Technology in California Schools," shows where help is needed. A potential volunteer organizer can zoom from a map of the entire state down to street level showing how to get to a school that needs help. Once people sign up for a given school the red dots indicating "help!" automatically change through yellow indicating "1-4 volunteers," to green showing that over four volunteers have signed up.
NetDay News , this
project's lively newsletter, is currently organizing an
Principally the invention of John Gage of Sun Microsystems, NetDay received a boost from the Clinton Administration when it organized a meeting on educational technology in California schools in September, 1995.
NetDay quickly became the centerpiece for the President's Educational Technology Initiative incorporating several other initiatives (including a Technology Literacy Challenge, Virtual Office Hours).
Details of these and other projects can also be found at the web page for the Department of Education's Technology Initiatives .
In all of this activity, you will have noticed that the arts have not been mentioned. One of the goals of NINCH is that museums, arts centers and arts institutions be included in such access programs.
One new project that will help to do this is a collaboration between the National Endowment for the Arts and the Benton Foundation. Named "Open Studio: The Arts Online," the program will establish public points of access to the Internet at arts and cultural institutions throughout the country. In addition, critically important training programs will enable artists and arts institutions to become effective information providers on the World Wide Web.
Budgeted at $1 million annually, Open Studio: The Arts Online, is designed to explore the tools and techniques that will help arts and cultural organizations actively participate in the networked environment. The project will promote access to the Internet and to arts and cultural information through a two-part process:
1. One hundred Access Sites will be created, offering free Internet access for artists and the public in arts organizations, libraries and community centers. Two sites in each state and territory of the United States will be selected to maximize geographic, income, and ethnic diversity and each identified site will receive a small award (up to $4,000) to establish public Internet access in their community.
The first set of sites has just been announced; a second set will be announced in February:
2. A system of community web mentoring sites will be established to provide arts organizations and individual artists with the basic skills needed for online communications and electronic publishing. Each mentoring site will receive support (up to $35,000) to train nonprofit arts organizations and individual artists. These trainees, in turn, will each be asked to train another organization or artist in an "each one teach one" strategy.
Three pilot mentor sites have already been selected, others will be announced in February, 1997:
Organizations may apply to be either access or mentoring sites Deadline for applications is Jan. 15th, 1997 and the awards will be announced in March.
For background on the project, see Jane Alexander's article, "Building Community through Open Studio."
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For comments or suggestions on this newsletter and
its content,
e-mail David Green or call
202/296-5346.
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