IP: FCC to give schools Web subsidies

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

FCC to give schools Web subsidies


          New panel takes step in planning universal access


  AS PART of a sweeping program to revamp the way it provides and pays
  for ''universal access'' to telecommunications, the FCC decided Thursday
  to provide schools subsidized access to the World Wide Web. A joint
  panel, created by the recent telecommunications bill, decreed that poorer
  schools, measured by school lunch subsidies, would receive up to 90
  percent discounts on Internet access, with the average school getting a 60
  percent discount. Vice-president Al Gore called the vote ''a bold move''
  toward the administration's goal of wiring every classroom to the Internet
  by the year 2000.


                       Story by Rory J. O'Connor
               of the Mercury News Washington Bureau