The Federal Communications Commission agreed Thursday to dramatically boost spending to bring high-speed Internet access to schools and libraries in poor or rural areas, a move that would likely increase Americans’ phone bills by about $2 a year.

The FCC also is mandating higher Internet speeds in rural areas for consumers.

Educators hailed the 60 percent jump in spending to $3.9 billion as critical to making sure much of the nation’s population doesn’t get left behind, particularly as other countries invest heavily in broadband connections. FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said he estimates that two-thirds of American schools still don’t have access to high-speed connections, which can affect a child’s ability to do homework, research college scholarships and acquire basic job skills.

“We are talking about a moral issue,” said Wheeler. “The greatest responsibility — the greatest moral responsibility — that any generation has is the preparation of the next generation,” and “16 cents a month is a small price to pay for that great responsibility that we all have.”

The FCC also is ordering phone companies that receive Connect America funding must provide consumers “with speeds of at least 10 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps for uploads.” That’s an increase from 4/1 requirements set in 2011. That is an increase reflecting marketplace and technological changes that have occurred since the FCC set its previous requirement of 4 Mbps/1 Mbps speeds in 2011.

Virtuall all urban households “are able to subscribe to even faster service.Congress directed the FCC to make available in rural areas communications services that are reasonably comparable to those in urban areas.,” the FCC said.

“Increasing the Connect America speed requirement means that rural Americans, like urban Americans, can tap the benefits provided by broadband through faster web downloads, improved video streaming, and service capable of supporting multiple users in a household.”

E-Rate Details, Reaction

Data cited by Wheeler includes:

  • 68% of all districts (73% in rural areas) say that not a single school meets long-term high-speed Internet connectivity targets today.
  • Approximately 41% of rural public schools lack access to fiber networks sufficient to meet modern connectivity goals for digital learning, compared to 31% of suburban and urban public schools. 
  • 39% of schools in affluent areas currently meet speed targets, but only 14% of schools in low-income rural and urban areas meet those targets.
  • 45% of school districts lack sufficient Wi-Fi capacity to move to one-to-one student-to-device deployments which is increasingly necessary to achieve modern digital learning objectives.
  • Half of all public libraries report connections of less than 10 Mbps (70% of rural libraries) – or less than 10% of the target for libraries with smaller service areas and less than 1% of the speed target for libraries serving larger numbers of people. 
  • More than half (58%) of districts say the monthly recurring expense of connections is the most significant barrier to faster service.
  • Nearly 40% of districts indicate they can’t afford the high up-front capital costs of infrastructure upgrades

The FCC’s E-Rate program provides discounted telecommunications and Internet access to qualifying schools and libraries. The program is paid for through a larger “universal service fund.” Service providers are required to contribute to that fund, but the cost is often passed on to consumers as a required monthly fee.

The FCC order also seeks to help schools in other ways by:

  • Suspending the requirement that applicants seek funding for large up front construction costs over several years, and allowing applicants to pay their share of one-time, up-front construction costs over multiple years
  • Equalizing the treatment of schools and libraries seeking support for dark fiber with those seeking support for lit fiber. Dark fiber leases allow the purchase of capacity without the service of transmitting data – lighting the fiber. Dark fiber can be an especially cost-effective option for smaller, rural districts
  • Allowing schools and libraries to build high-speed broadband facilities themselves when that is the most cost-effective option, subject to a number of safeguards

E-Rate spending had been capped at $2.4 billion a year, but the FCC says demand is much higher. In 2013, the regulatory agency said it received $4.9 billion in E-Rate requests from local communities. The latest vote increases spending by $1.5 billion for a total of $3.9 billion a year.

The FCC’s two Republican commissioners voted against the plan because they said businesses, which often pay for employee phones, would bear the brunt of the added cost. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai said he believes the program is plagued by waste that could be fixed with fiscal reform.

“The commission shies away from making any hard choices and instead just pours more money into a broken system,” Pai said.

The Obama administration endorsed the plan when Wheeler discussed the details last month. Education Secretary Arne Duncan called Thursday’s vote “a huge step forward” in the administration’s program to expand digital learning resources in schools.

Education advocates have long called for the FCC to authorize more E-Rate spending so that local governments could plan ahead for costly installations or upgrades. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, said the vote was the “best holiday gift possible” for educators.

“Access to the Internet is as important to learning today as traditional textbooks were fifty years ago,” said Wise. “With increased funding for high-speed Internet connections, U.S. teachers and students will spend more classroom time teaching and learning rather than waiting for webpages and videos to load.”