MFederal dollars can still subsidise Internet connections for schools and libraries, thanks to a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling.
The so-called education or e-rate in the 1996 Telecommunications Act went into jeopardy after Congressional Republicans and major telephone carriers like GTE complained the funds could be spent only on telecommunications services, according to Reuters.
But the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Friday turned those arguments aside, saying the Federal Communications Commission had acted within the sometimes cloudy bounds of the 1996 Telecommunications Act. "The language of the statute," the three-judge panel ruled, "is ambiguous enough to require deference" to the FCC.
The court opinion did say, however, that both the law and its legislative history "do not support" the FCC viewing of it. But the FCC says the ruling overall validates its decision to connect the nation's schools and libraries on the Internet.
The Telecommunications Act includes the program which connected thousands of schools and libraries around the United States. It handed $1.7 billion out last year to some 26,000 school and library districts.
GTE says its attorneys are still analysing the court ruling.
