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The Federal Communications Commission has recommended a host of ways that the government can help make broadband more useful to Americans when it comes to health care, energy costs, and jobs. And new rules enacted by the agency will let thousands of public schools open their Internet facilities to the public.

"Broadband’s ability to improve lives goes far beyond a strictly 'educational' context," noted Commissioner Mignon Clyburn during Thursday's Open Commission FCC meeting. "Computer terminals at public access points that sit dormant waste an important opportunity to help members of the public search for jobs."

Clyburn was referring to an Order that will let schools that participate in the FCC's E-Rate computer equipment funding program open their doors to Internet seekers during non-operating hours. Right now, K-12s that take E-Rate money for equipment and broadband connectivity can only offer those resources to their students. That means that these facilities go unused on evenings, weekends, and during summer breaks.

Now schools that permit community access can share their networked computers with job seekers, students enrolled in digital literacy programs, and people who need to access government services online. The ruling comes in the form of a waiver of the FCC's requirement that E-Rate recipients only use these funds for educational purposes. The Order will last through the E-Rate funding year, up until June 30, 2011. But schools have to promise that they won't request more E-Rate money than they need for their students, will only open their Internet doors when students are out of school, and won't sell their facilities to anyone.

No backdoors

"The change in our rules should not inadvertently put an increased demand on the E-Rate program," warned Commissioner Robert M. McDowell. "It should not provide a backdoor way for schools to request more funds than necessary to support their student populations, and any upcoming audits should be designed in a manner to foreclose such actions."

This expansion of E-Rate facilities was first tried in Alaska. It could take some of the pressure off public libraries, which share their Internet stations with patrons for general use, and have been deluged with job seekers who have no access to broadband anywhere else. But one wonders how many cash-strapped public schools will avail themselves of this change, given that opening up their workstations will require them to spend additional money on access supervisors and technical support.

Nonetheless, the move won praise from Representative Edward Markey (D-MA), who has a bill in the House that would allow E-Rate to fund e-Book readers and home broadband connections for low income K-12 kids. Free Press also cheered the announcement, but noted that it falls far short of the reform group's own recommendations, which include letting schools offer WiFi to local neighborhoods.

Anytime, anywhere

Meanwhile, yet another sneak preview of the agency's National Broadband Plan surfaced at Thursday's meeting. The FCC's broadband National Purposes Update didn't mention any of the big regulatory recommendations that it will make to Congress when the plan is unveiled on March 17. But the document did offer a laundry list of ways that government could make broadband more useful for the public. These include:

Setting up a broadband powered "national employment assistance platform," which would offer the workforce "anytime, anywhere e-learning tools to drive enrollment in post-secondary education and job training programs"

Authorizing the Rural Health Care Program to fund high speed Internet adoption at rural health care facilities, and encouraging the use of remote monitoring vital sign equipment hooked up to the 'Net

Fast tracking the digitization and accessibility of health care records

Encouraging deployment of smart grid technology, and releasing more government data on digital platforms so that consumers have online access to their energy use records

Creating a nationwide interoperable broadband wireless public safety network.

Some of these proposals are a bit difficult to decipher, e.g., "Improve ability of federal buildings to serve as anchor tenants for unserved and underserved communities." Will the FCC suggest running fiber lines to federal buildings as a way to jumpstart local ISP activity?

The FCC has been trying to get that interoperable public safety network out the door for quite a while. At present the Commission is tasked by Congress with auctioning off a chunk of spectrum to a private company that will share the bandwidth with public safety agencies. The one and only attempt at that auction failed, and now public safety groups want the agency to allocate that band to them outright, something that Capitol Hill would have to authorize first.