The FCC is proposing spending $1 billion a year to bring Wi-Fi to schools

There are some schools that are lucky and have the necessary budget to provide WiFi throughout the entire school, thus allowing students, staff, and faculty to access the internet effortlessly. Unfortunately the opposite is also true, where some schools simply do not have the money to install WiFi for the entire student body. Now the good news is that things could soon change for the better. According to a new proposal by the FCC, they are proposing that $1 billion be allocated to schools per year that will allow them to install WiFi. As it stands, three out of five schools do not have the WiFi that they need, which is something that needs to be addressed.

U.S. schools could get a cool billion to set up Wi-Fi networks to connect more than 10 million more students by the 2015-2016 school year under a new FCC proposal. Three out of five schools don’t have the Wi-Fi they need, yet no money was available for Wi-Fi last year under E-Rate, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s Internet funding program for schools and libraries, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said Friday in a proposal circulated to the agency’s other commissioners. Wheeler’s plan would allocate $1 billion in E-Rate funds for Wi-Fi next year and another $1 billion in 2016, with the goal of getting Wi-Fi to more than 10 million additional students in each of those years. It also calls for predictable funding in future years. If the agency takes action this summer, the Wi-Fi upgrades could be in place for the 2015-2016 school year, according to the proposal. The initial funding would come from $2 billion that the FCC has determined can be freed from reserve accounts and other sources, the proposal said.