Weighing the costs of Internet access for every school, library

The Warren County Library serves 7,000 people in rural Georgia. But the distance separating the community library from the information age is measured not in miles but in dollars.

Sandra Green, the librarian, has a total budget of $38,000 a year that must pay for everything, from staff salaries to utility bills. The library has a three-year-old personal computer, but it is not linked to any networks. "If we could get help to get on the Internet, it would be great," Green said. "If that ever happened, it would enlighten a lot of people here."

Green's hopes for crossing America's digital divide, and the hopes of many thousands of libraries and schools, rest with a little- known, eight-member board of federal regulators and state officials. The joint board held its final meeting last month in Washington, and today it must recommend how to give libraries and elementary and secondary schools access to modern telecommunications services at discount prices. The special treatment for libraries and schools is the result of an amendment in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was signed into law in February. These educational institutions, Congress decided, should be given subsidies so that people of all backgrounds, especially children, have access to the tools of information technology. Without measures to insure access, telecommunications deregulation could well widen the gap between society's haves and have-nots. Yet while the amendment to help schools and libraries is sweeping in scope, the language is vague. It speaks of "enhanced services," which nearly everyone involved in the issue takes to mean Internet access. But it also discusses making services "affordable," which is an invitation for debate. Congress left it to the joint board to wade through the economics and politics of how to institute the preferred terms for schools and libraries -- as well as overhaul the old "universal service" provisions, a system of payments and subsidies to insure service is available to all households. So the eight-person board is faced with somehow trying to determine how much help schools and libraries should get and at what cost. The board includes three members of the Federal Communications Commission, four state utility commissioners and the public counsel for Missouri, who is designated a consumer representative. The board's recommendations will form the basis for rules that the FCC will issue by May. Reed E. Hundt, the FCC chairman, is the joint board's leading proponent of generous support, quickly granted, for schools and libraries. While only 9 percent of America's classrooms have access to the Internet today, Hundt talks ambitiously about wiring them all in the next five years. Other members of the joint board are reluctant to go as far as Hundt. The board's role, they say, is to devise a plan of balanced economic regulation rather than to champion social change, which could be quite costly. The discounts for schools and libraries will be covered by payments from telephone companies, but those charges will be passed along to phone customers. The administration estimates that the cost of linking schools and libraries to the Internet would be as much as $2.5 billion annually for five years. The Consumer Federation of America estimates that would add 50 cents a month, or $6 a year, to the average American's home phone bill. The joint board, analysts say, must also develop a formula to insure that schools and libraries in the poorest areas get the most help. Otherwise, they say, the institutions in more affluent communities could be the biggest beneficiaries. For schools and libraries, a 50-percent discount for telecommunications and Internet services is a frequently mentioned figure. "But without some sort of means test, the wealthy communities would benefit the most from the discounts because they could afford to purchase the most services," said Mark Cooper, director of research for the Consumer Federation of America. More than discount-rate telecommunications services, to be sure, will be needed to help close the digital divide between wealthy and poorer communities. Microsoft Corp., for example, supports 215 libraries in low-income urban and rural areas. In the program, Microsoft provides hardware, software and training for libraries, which must pay the telecommunications costs themselves. "The telecommunications is part of the puzzle, but only one part," said Christopher Hedrick, who heads the library program for Microsoft. "Real technology access for poorer areas requires public and private-sector support."

Copyright 1996
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