FCC Approves Subsidy Plan to Upgrade School and Library Networks 70
The Washington Post reports that, "In a 3-2 vote along party lines Friday, the FCC greenlit a plan to spend $2 billion over the next two years on subsidies for internal networks. The move also begins a process to phase out some subsidies under the federal program, known as E-Rate, for services and equipment that are on the decline, such as pagers and dial-up Internet service." That sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but as usual in politics it's the result of a messy process:
The original plan called for spending $5 billion on WiFi over five years, in line with a push by the Obama administration to bring next-gen broadband and WiFi to 99 percent of students over the same period. Those funds would have partly come from savings as a result of transitioning away from supporting legacy technologies. The proposal would also have eliminated an existing requirement that E-Rate funds be spent first on broadband services before being applied to WiFi. In past years, the cost of broadband service meant that money was rarely left over for upgrading WiFi connections. But the FCC's proposal was ultimately scaled back late Thursday amid Republican objections that the E-Rate program can't afford the changes. The final proposal's two-year, $2 billion commitment accounts for the money the FCC has already set aside for WiFi upgrades, but it does not commit the FCC to funding WiFi upgrades at that same rate for the following three years.
$10,000 isnt much to set up a school. (Score:2, Informative)
Your funding costs are a bit off there first poster.
The schools I have been in have the following costs to set up a functioning network that can be managed down to a student level.
Cisco 4400 Wlan controller with 50 ap license $7200 (amazon) (no longer produced but functional for a school)
Cisco 1252 aironet ap $300 ea x 50 = $15,000 (amazon)
Cisco POE switch to power all the AP's SG200-50p poe smart switch $800 (amazon)
Cabling installed by contractor 12,000 feet (based on my own install at the last school I was at for 15 AP's taking 3,000 feet) $unknown
$10,000 per school is nothing when just the hardware for a large campus would cost over $23,000 plus cat5e/6 plus labor.
For those of you wondering why so many AP's are needed, most schools have MANY firewalls made of brick that are double thick and radio waves just dont like to penetrate that. On top of that, schools contain upwards of THOUSANDS of bodies sucking in the RF along with hard corners and multiple thousands of devices.
I have seen students with their laptop, phone, and kindle all out and connected at the same time.
Last to learn (Score:2, Informative)
What does McDonalds have that our schools don't have?
1. Affordable food that students will eat.
2. Free WiFi.