Congress pulls funding for free Wi-Fi hotspots at schools and libraries

The Senate has voted to end a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule that used federal funding to cover Wi-Fi hotspots that could be used outside of school and libraries.

The program, first implemented by former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, applied funds from the $2.6 billion federal E-Rate program to a program that enabled schools and libraries to provide free Wi-Fi hotspots to children and others with poor or no internet access at home.

As Policyband notes prior to a successful Senate procedural vote yesterday to take up the measure, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said the rule “violates the Communications Act, which clearly limits the use of the funds in question to classrooms and libraries.”

In a statement last year, Rosenworcel disagreed that the law doesn’t support hotspot lending. Citing remote learning issues that were put in sharp relief by the covid pandemic, Rosenworcel wrote that while E-Rate had “overwhelming success connecting schools and libraries,” it needed to be modernized so that schools and libraries could “loan out Wi-Fi hotspots to support high-speed internet access in rural America, urban America, and everything in between.” She noted that the change could be accomplished “within the existing E-Rate budget.”

The FCC under Chairman Brendan Carr, who opposed the hotspot lending program, has aggressively pulled back from consumer protection programs and turned into the Trump administration’s de facto censorship arm. GOP members of Congress have worked to rollback subsidies that help to increase US internet access, such as the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program, in the name of spending reduction. Citing a recent study in March, TechDirt wrote that the “$7–$8 billion annual taxpayer cost of the program generated between $28.9 and $29.5 billion in savings thanks to expanded access to affordable internet and remote telehealth services.”

In a statement released after the vote, FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, said the vote will exacerbate economic disparities. “Those with sufficient internet access are increasingly separated from those without, and this decision risks widening that gap even further,” Gomez said.