Arizona schools rely on federal dollars to boost internet [telecom]
By Pete Aleshire
The Payson [AZ] School Board this week approved nearly $35,000 in contracts to upgrade Internet equipment and service on the district's four campuses. The federal E-rate program will pay 80 percent of the cost, for the latest local installment in a multi-billion-dollar annual federal effort to connect schools and libraries to high speed Internet.
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The federal government charges phone and telecommunications companies an annual fee to improve access for underserved areas amounting to some $2 billion annually. The long-running program has helped boost high-speed and wireless Internet on school campuses - rising from about 35 percent of schools when the program started in the 1990s to about 95 percent now.
Posted 5 years ago by Bill Horne in General Telecommunications Forum
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