Building Education Technology Infrastructure: A Policy History of Universal Service and the E-Rate, 1927–Present

Abstract

This paper undertakes a descriptive policy history that seeks to document the origins of the universal service standard in The Radio Act of 1927 and its evolution through policy and legislative changes in the mid-1990s and, more recently, in the 2000s. Key questions are: How have communications law and policy directed communications infrastructure development in the U.S. through universal service provisions for K-12 schools? What foundational concepts and commitments and the key legal, regulatory, and/or fiscal mechanisms have been advanced? How have these changed over time? What, now, are the key issues and how will telecommunications policy affect broadband access for K-12 schools and communities nationwide? Objectives or Purposes:This paper undertakes a descriptive policy history that seeks to document the origins of the universal service standard in The Radio Act of 1927 and its evolution through policy and legislative changes in the mid-1990s and, more recently, in the 2000s. Key questions are: How have communications law and policy directed communications infrastructure development in the U.S. through universal service provisions for K-12 schools? What foundational concepts and commitments and the key legal, regulatory, and/or fiscal mechanisms have been advanced? How have these changed over time? What, now, are the key issues and how will telecommunications policy affect broadband access for K-12 schools and communities nationwide?In December 2011, Susan Crawford, Cardozo School of Law Professor former Special Assistant to President Obama for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy wrote a New York Times op/ed piece entitled "The New Digital Divide." The title harkened back to the Commerce Department's 1995 report that coined the term "digital divide" based on findings of significant differences between those who could and could not access the World Wide Web/Internet based on race and economic and/or geographic status. Based on statistics garnered from the U.S. Commerce Department's latest report on home Internet use that showed persistent under-access of high-speed Internet among Black, Hispanic and rural U.S. residents and those with disabilities, Crawford advanced the notion of a "new digital divide." This divide, she argues, is not about access to the Internet at all, it is about access to high speed Internet and the economic, cultural, social and technical affordances such access provides."Increasingly, we are a country in which on the urban and suburban welloff have truly high-speed Internet access, while the rest -the poor and the working class -either cannot afford access or use restricted wireless access as their only connection to the Internet. As our jobs, entertainment, politics and even health care move online, millions are at risk of being left behind" (Crawford, 2011).Households without either broadband or dial-up Internet cite lack of need (47 percent), lack of affordability (24 percent), and an inadequate computer (15 percent) as key reasons for their non-adoption of the service, and ind...