US/ND-2: Wire To The Schoolhouse Door

Wire To The Schoolhouse Door

Bill Cosh (bcosh@wasb.org)
Tue, 03 Sep 1996 12:23:43 -0700


Just a quick cautionary note over potentially using a concept such as 
deploying a "wire to the schoolhouse door" by a telco in part of the US 
definition.

When our state was struggling with deregulation issues two years ago, we 
also received similar pledges from the major telco's in our state about 
"Bringing the Information Superhighway to the Doorstep of every school 
in the state". 

Unfortunately, two years later we, and our legislature, are now learning 
what those pledges meant. First every school didn't mean every school, 
it turned out to mean only the schools located in Ameritech's service 
area. The schools located in the service areas of the 92 other telco's 
got nothing.

Ameritech then clarified that when they said every school, they really 
only meant every high school. Elementary schools were not part of their 
pledge.

To the door of the school actually meant to the nearest man hole cover, 
lamp post of other landmark that the telco had already deployed fiber 
optics. Cost of connecting physically to the building in some cases 
wasn't included.

I would hope that the FCC's rules would be more difinitive, and would 
proactively address situations such as "What about new schools? Will 
they also be hooked up under the established committments? In Wisconsin, 
they weren't.  Also, what is a school? Do charter schools count? 
Wisconsin had to amend its rules to assure that they would have access 
similar to the other public schools in Wisconsin.

Bill Cosh
Wisconsin Association of School Boards