In the Matter of

Federal-State Joint Board on
Universal Service

CC Docket No. 96-45

COMMENTS OF APPLE COMPUTER, INC.

Apple Computer, Inc. ("Apple") hereby comments on the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Order Establishing joint Board ("NPRM"), issued March 8, 1996.

Apple has long been the leading provider of technology for education. For well over a decade, it has been committed to offering tools and services that incorporate best practices for using technology to enhance teaching, learning, and communicating. These tools not only help teachers to provide the foundation skills of a good basic education, they also enable students to develop the skills they will need for the future, including interpreting data, collaborating communicating, and using computer technologies both individually and as part of a larger group.

Apple's commitment to education goes well beyond merely supplying equipment. Apple is deeply involved in the technological, social, and cultural issues that influence educational reform globally. Through its Apple Classrooms of Tomorrow ("ACOT") technology research group, Apple has learned that technological tools can be used to motivate students and foster their abilities, revolutionize the way they learn, and ease their access to the world around them. Students benefit not merely through improved performance in test scores, writing ability, and other traditional measures of achievement, but also by becoming more socially aware and confident, better able to communicate effectively and work collaboratively, more independent as learners, and with a positive orientation to the future. New technologies, used properly, can transform teachers from lecturers to guides/mentors who are able to participate in the education process with their students.[1]

Apple, therefore, has a strong interest in the Commission's implementation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the "1996 Act") provisions dealing with the delivery of telecommunications and information services to schools and libraries. Access to telecommunication networks can be a tool for transforming and equalizing education opportunity , providing three basic benefits to students and teachers:

Communications: Networks make it possible for students, teachers, and faculty to communicate with others both in an individual classroom and across schools, communities, states and nations.

Information Access: Networks allow students to reach beyond the physical limitations of their classroom to obtain information relevant to their learning. Through networks, students can access school library systems and CD-ROM data bases. In addition, they can use the Internet to obtain information stored on computers at any other networked location on the planet.

Share Resources: Networks enable students to access remote files, share files for collaborative projects, share and publish classroom projects, and connect to printers and other devices. Using network modems or connections to on-line services and the Internet, this sharing of information resources can be engaged in on a local or even global basis.

Based upon its experience in the field of education, and in order to enable schools to take full advantage of telecommunications and information technologies, Apple urges the Commission to interpret Section 254 of the 1996 Act with the following principles in mind.

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1 See "Changing the Conversation About Teaching, Learning & Technology: A Report on 10 Years of ACOT Research" (1996) (attached).

1. All students should have equitable access to advanced telecommunications resources.

The rules defining the services to be made available to schools and libraries under Section 254(h)(1)(B) of the 1996 Act should seek to assure that all students will have access to telecommunications services without regard to household income, school budget, geography, school size, or other factors that distinguish students and schools from one another. This fundamental principle of equity underlies several of the other principles discussed below, including the recommendations that:

* the Commission adopt a broad definition of available services - thereby making it possible for each individual school to obtain the mix of services best Suited to its needs and resources;

* a mix of wireline and wireless options be provided - thereby making it possible for schools and service providers to use the most efficient, least-costly alternative to satisfy a given set of requirements; and

* the rules clearly provide for network sharing - thereby making it possible for schools and libraries to minimize the costs of their networks by sharing capacity, on a non-profit basis, with other users.

In addition, the principle of equity argues in favor of Commission action to prevent "redlining." Because Section 254(h)(1)(B)'s basic obligation to provide service on a discounted basis applies only to telecommunications carriers serving a "geographic area," the Commission should define the concept of "geographic area" carefully. In particular, it should seek to maximize the number of carriers that are deemed to be serving a given geographic area - especially rural and high-cost areas - and, thereby, to increase the number of options available to schools and libraries within each geographic area. Services should be defined broadly and inclusively, and the definition of services should evolve over time.

The Commission must take care to assure that schools - both today and in the future - have access to a full range of telecommunications services. Different schools will require a different mix of functionalities, and each should be able to make the choices best suited for its student body, in light of its available physical, financial, and other resources, without being unnecessarily constrained by an overly-restrictive "menu" of covered services. Moreover, educators are still at a relatively early stage of understanding how best to use telecommunication and information technologies to enhance learning Schools should be given the widest possible latitude to experiment with alternative services, to implement new technologies as they become available, and to modify their usage of these resources is their understanding of the interaction between technology and learning matures. For this reason, the Commission should require that a wide range of telecommunications services be included within the definition of "universal service" for purposes of Section 254(1)(B) of the 1996 Act. This definition should include:

* a high bit rate "best of class" connection linking the school buildings to the telecommunications infrastructure;

* a full range of additional digital services, with bandwidths ranging from 128 K to at least 45 MB;

* both fixed and mobile digital services; and

* both dedicated and dial-up facilities.

In addition, each school should be able to obtain telecommunications services and CPE on an unbundled basis.[2]

The set of services encompassed within the "universal service" rubric should be capable of supporting the following needs of students and teachers:

* Curriculum development using communications technology;

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2 In a recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the Commission proposed that non-dominant interexchange carriers be permitted to bundle CPE and long distance services. Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Policy and Rules Concerning the Interstate Interexchange Marketplace, CC Docket No. 96-61 (March 21, 1996). Even if such a rule is adopted generally, schools and libraries -will require the flexibility to create their own combinations of CPE and telecommunications services and, therefore, should continue to have the ability to obtain these elements on an unbundled basis.

* Integration of telecommunications and information capabilities, including functions Such as netbrowsing, videoconferencing, and virtual reality into the educational process;

* Professional development/ teacher training;

* Technical support;

* Parental linkage to the schools to become more involved in what their children are accomplishing

* Personnel applications; and

* Student record and assessment.

The services available to schools and libraries should evolve over time to keep pace with developments in technology and communications markets, and this evolution should become effective with the minimum amount of regulatory intervention possible. For example, as few as three to four years ago few would have said that all schools should have Internet access. Today, however, a reasonably high-speed link to the Internet is generally viewed as a fairly basic requirement. Similarly, computers originally were introduced into schools through centralized computer tabs or media centers. Today, however, there is wide-spread recognition that computers ire substantially more valuable when they are available to students wherever, whenever they want to learn - whether in the classroom, on a field trip, or at home.

An evolving definition of available facilities and functionalities is essential to assure that schools continue to have access to technologies and services that are not considered significant today. This is important not only in its own right, but also because schools will be better able to afford telecommunications and information equipment if they are operating in the mainstream market, rather than having been sidelined into outdated technologies by an overly-restrictive definition of the services which they may receive on a discounted basis. For this reason, Apple supports the Commission's focus on the functionalities that should be supported through the universal service mechanism and on the facilities required to provide those functionalities,[3] as well as the Commission's statement that it will not prescribe a specific technical standard for each funded service.[4] Overly restrictive definitions which focus solely on the "service" rather than the underlying functionalities and facilities- and, in particular, those that define a "service" with reference to a fixed set of technical specifications - will tend to become obsolete over time, sometimes quite rapidly. In addition, rigid definitions over-emphasize the characteristics of the service rather than recognizing that these services are merely inputs to the educational process, not ends in themselves, and must be capable of being molded by educators to meet the needs of a particular set of students at a particular place and time. Schools and libraries, therefore, will be better served by a set of rules that define services in non-rigid terms and with reference to the broader, evolving- market of available services.

3. Rights should be clear and requirements minimal.

Schools and libraries will not have extensive legal or administrative resources to wade through i complex set of rules and regulations governing their rights to obtain telecommunications services on i discounted basis. For this reason, it is essential that the Commission write its rules in the clearest possible language, that carriers be directed to provide understandable information to those potentially entitled to discounted services, and that additional regulatory burdens be minimized.

Apple, therefore, agrees that the Commission should seek to harmonize its discount methodologies with the states' methodologies.[5] In addition, it should adopt a simple certification (e.g., a brief letter from an authorized school official) to deal with the 1996 Act's requirement that discounted services must be used for educational purposes and may not sold, resold, or otherwise transferred for money or any other thing of value.[6] Finally the Commission should adopt clear rules - with examples, and perhaps even including a process for obtaining FCC opinion letters - that expressly permit schools and libraries to share their

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3 NPRM at II 8O.

4 Id.

5 NPRM at II 83.

6 NPRM at II 84.

networks with others, including others who are not themselves eligible to receive support.[7] Such sharing not only will permit interoperation among different users, but also could be used to reduce the overall cost of the network and to provide opportunities for schools and libraries to create partnerships with others -irotti-id them. As a result, any rules that restrict sharing should be limited to the maximum extent possible, and where needed should avoid Imposing burdensome recordkeeping, monitoring, or other obligations.[8]

4. Schools and libraries should receive access to both wired and wireless facilities and services.

As discussed above, a broad range of solutions will be required to meet the communications needs of schools and libraries across the country, both now and in the future. Wired and wireless services each are suited to satisfy different needs, and both should be made available.[9]

Efforts to enhance access to advanced telecommunication and information services should seek to capitalize upon competition and market developments

In addition to granting, schools and libraries the right to obtain telecommunications services on a discounted basis, the 1996 Act also instructed the Commission to establish competitively neutral rules to enhance, to the extent technically feasible and economically reasonably, these institutions' access to advanced telecommunications and information services.[10] Apple agrees that access to information services will be vital in meeting the needs of tomorrow's

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7 NPRM it I S6.

8 In particular, requirements to allocate capacity among those eligible for a subsidy and those who are not eligible for a subsidy is problematic in a digital world. For example, a school installing a network to provide full motion video would require a high bandwidth link, whether the school intended to use the video capability I hour per week or continuously every day. If the school is entitled to obtain that link at a subsidized rate, and if it intends to use that link for educational purposes, it should not matter that it is permitting another user to share capacity on that link, particularly where the sharing is done to enhance the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the school's network.

9 In addition, unlicensed products and services can meet some of the needs of schools and libraries. For example, in light of recent and proposed unlicensed allocations, unlicensed devices soon will be able to support very high capacity local area networks and, if authorized by the Commission, longer-distance "community network" links. Unlicensed devices, however, are not directly implicated by universal service policies since they are not a service provided by a telecommunications carrier.

10 1996 Act, Section 254(h)(2)(A).

educational and students. Information services often provide the content that make the "pipes" of the telecommunications network come alive for students and contribute much of the value that will enhance educational opportunities

The Commission's efforts to promote the availability of information services to schools and libraries should focus on the competitive marketplace. For example, the computer and information services markets have been characterized by often substantial price competition, resulting in computers and information services that not only is powerful and easy to use, but also are affordable. In the years to come, the computer and information services markets - free from the inhibiting forces of regulations will continue to innovate and create new affordable educational, informational, and entertainment services.

The Commission should recognize the substantial benefits provided by robust competition in the computer and information services markets and should avoid any impulse to regulate these markets in an effort to promote access by schools and libraries to advanced information services. Such regulation not only Would be counter productive, but also would be inconsistent with the intent of the 1996 Act. Instead, the Commission should use its powers to augment the strengths of the marketplace. For example, the Commission should allocate adequate, suitable spectrum for unlicensed services - a low-cost, flexible means for meeting many of the communications needs of schools and libraries and of enhancing these institutions' access to, and ability to use, advanced information services. In addition, it should work with the Board responsible for Governing the Telecommunications Development Fund to promote access to capital for small businesses in the telecommunications industry - including the computer, data transmission, software, programming advanced messaging and electronics businesses - and to stimulate the development of new technologies. Finally, it should continue to be vigilant in promoting fair competition in the information services market by assuring that information service providers have equitable access, via the local telephone exchange, to their customers.

CONCLUSION

Apple's experience in education technology for the past decade has given it a unique perspective into several of the issued raised in the universal service NPRM. Apple urges the Commission to implement the NPRM in accordance with the principles outlined above. Respectfully submitted, APPLE COMPUTER, INC.

s / Lynn C. Silver
Lynn C. Silver
Education Policy manager
APPLE COMPUTER, INC.
1667 K Street, N.W., Suite 410
Washington, D.C. 20006
(202) 466-7080

OF COUNSEL:

Marv Dent
GOLDBERG, GODLES, WIENER & WRIGHT
1229 Nineteenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20036
(202) 429-4900

April 12, 1996