New Record in E-rate Demand

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) has informed FCC that the estimated demand for E-Rate is $5.237 billion for 2012 - over twice the amount available.  Useful chart is available here.

What caught my eye however is that the estimated demand for Priority One services (telecommunications, Internet access, etc) is $2.44 billion which exceeds the total funding available of $2.25 billion.  Priority Two services, internal connections, will most likely go unfunded for the majority of applicants this year.  

This continues to suggest the E-rate is need of an overhaul. It may not make sense to continute funding beepers when there are growing needs for broadband.  Case in point are the new technology specifications issues by PARCC and Smarter Balanced today.  And schools districts can't continue to function with this level of uncertainty around if they will receive E-rate discounts or not.