FCC plans to kill Wi-Fi on school buses, hotspots for library patrons The US Federal Communications Commission may soon pull funding for free Wi-Fi on school buses and in libraries after Chair Brendan Carr declared two Biden-era expansions unlawful and proposed eliminating them. Carr, who was elevated to his leadership position by President Donald Trump, said this week that two Biden-era E-Rate …
Its not about protecting children. It about preventing young and inquisitive minds from possible learning about the issues their parents discuss, they see on the news, on social media. Control the flow of information to children and the Republicans can promote just their ideology and raise the next generation of fanatics, fascists, and religious zealots. Mold the children their way, instead of being open and informed.
I think this is just the proverbial shot across the bow - just before they go in with the torpedoes to kill the relatively open internet.
Since most of the large backbone communications companies have already puckered their lips around the proffered toadstool it won't be a stretch to start limiting information flows.
Maybe he'll finally get his "wall".
It's soon going to be time for the rest of the world to bypass the U.S. and maintain their own root servers. Actually it's past time, this should have been done a long time ago. Those dangerous, insufferable assholes should NOT be in control of that. In their hands, it's essentially a kill switch for anything they don't like, and the entire Internet itself.
RIPE already operates one from the Netherlands, and there are Swedish and Japanese operators of root servers. Of course, the US-administered ones are global, including many non-US facilities.
Also, operating root servers does not allow you to censor things. Let's say that I have taken over all the root servers and now run the entirety of the system single-handed. I want to censor something hosted in the UK. My options for doing that are to drop all addresses in the .uk namespace or to not. I do not get to pick and choose. The UK name servers are not operated by me, nor can I decide to remove some of their responses from your view since I merely tell you where to find them and you talk independently to them. Okay, so to deal with that, I will set up a mirror of those servers and direct people to that instead of the real ones. For one thing, the TTL on requests to root servers is long, from days to a week. When I make my change, you won't immediately switch over because you or the DNS servers in your path won't have reason to request information from the root until the old information expires. You know who will notice, though? Nominet, who operates the DNS zone for all .uk addresses, who will see the flood from my mirror and will notice that it isn't normal, then call in people who will recognize this for what it is and raise the alarm. UK-based ISPs would then change their DNS settings to avoid my corrupt roots for that zone. In the meantime, Nominet might well block me to reduce the traffic and prevent me from trying to poison things. DNS is not that weak.
"My options for doing that are to drop all addresses in the .uk namespace or to not. I do not get to pick and choose."
And if you're a whimsical US president who decides on a whim to drop all country domain addresses in a country that's upset him today, then that would suit you fine. You just pick and choose that country domain.
Not really, because all the things that would affect the mirror would still affect the switch-off. There would still be a multiday "warning period" while TTLs expired where effects would be blunted while people implemented backup plans.
But it also wouldn't be very easy. As root servers go, the US government runs a lot of them. Three of the thirteen are operated by government sources, but not the same government source. To switch the .uk zone off, you probably want to coordinate the action from NASA, DISA, and the US Army Research Lab so they switch theirs off simultaneously. That's already hard, but they all come under federal jurisdiction, so you could manage it. The rest of them are going to be harder. They're run by private entities who aren't going to jump to executing commands just because they were told to with no legal justification.
Verisign runs two of them. That makes me wonder why they're considered logically separate, since all the other servers consist of redundant installations and infrastructure, but for whatever reason, they're there. If Verisign messed with them, that would permanently remove them from trustworthiness in any internet infrastructure. Trustworthiness in internet infrastructure is the only thing they do that generates money. They would do a lot to avoid taking this action because of the mortal harm that would come to them if it ended up happening. That action would either prevent this from happening or give people a lot of warning so they can switch to non-US servers. I also think they would have a lot of trouble convincing ISC to do that, since it's a small group of very motivated people who know exactly what would happen.
Running through this hypothetical was fun, but also, I don't think it's a risk we're going to encounter. Most people wouldn't understand that this is an option. Most who did, especially anyone with the knowledge to come anywhere close to accomplishing it, would understand it's a weak option. I'm not sure how we would get to a situation where anyone decided they wanted to try it badly enough to have any effect.
It's never about protecting children and the louder anyone professes that it is the more they're trying to use it as a smoke-screen for something they don't want you to find out.
Some people don't even care about their own children, you can be damn sure nobody in power cares about yours or mine. This is about power and money.
It's never about protecting children
I get tired of losing my freedoms because parents can't supervise their own children. And you're right, it's never about protecting children. It's about people with power forcing their morality on people who don't have power. Ironically, it's also commonly a 'do as I say, not as I do' situation.
In this case, I don't really have an opinion on WiFi on busses. I don't see it as a significant loss, nor a significant cost. But losing WiFi in public libraries will significantly hurt poor people. From kids trying to do their schoolwork there because they can't afford Internet at home. To adults that won't be able to even apply for jobs anymore because businesses are all going to online applications. We tell people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, work their way out of poverty, and then we take away their ability to get decent jobs. With the attack on unions we are going to have a permanent underclass of what are essentially slave laborers. This being America, businesses surely won't exploit the situation.
There is only one direction that removing workers rights (what very few there are in the first place in the USA), removing unions, removing societal safety nets, removing education... a slave labour class of people who will do anything to try and survive because they have no choice - they have to reproduce, which will be costly or risky and they will have to work somehow just for what passes as food. This will increase wage poverty and increase crime. The "solution" to what will be rapidly growing crime is, of course, more guns in the hands of fascists and control freaks.
To clarify this a little, what they've cut funding for is not internet connections inside the library, but library hotspot loans. Some libraries had programs where they would lend portable cellular hotspot devices to people so they could access internet connections from places other than the library building. I'm not sure what you had to do to qualify for that loan, and it's probably specific to each library system. Schools could also do that, probably for students who did not have home connections and schools that wanted to have the remote option or internet-based homework. That's what they can no longer fund through that program, though they are not forbidden from keeping the service around if they can fund it from other sources.
"Schools could also do that, probably for students who did not have home connections and schools that wanted to have the remote option or internet-based homework."
I believe that the money would be better spent making sure libraries had enough funding to remain open more hours and were stocked with more resources like books and tutorial programs/media. In the US there's been the "Obama Phone" program that hands out free cell phones. If people use their data allocation to watch mindless entertainment and run out before they get to the things that need to be done, oh well.
If there is an issue with kids having internet-based homework, the teachers and schools need to find alternatives when they have lower income students that may not have access.
Go back and read the damn article! WiFi is not being removed from public libraries. What is being removed is the lending of cellular hot spots. Why should the taxpayers be subsidizing this?
Jurs because something sounds good and makes 'you' feel better about yourself doesn't mean it is a good thing to do!
What exactly is a "cellular hot spot" in this context?
I ask as I have been involved in the UK's National Digital Inclusion Network.
In my area we (*) have in the past given out tablet computers (Android and Apple) with a 6 month 20GB month SIM. Thus these 4G enabled tablets could be deemed a "cellular hot spot".
Hence this action might have an impact on the lending of digital equipment that helps disadvantaged people get online.
(*) Our community owned library.
"What exactly is a "cellular hot spot" in this context?"
My assumption is it's a black box that can be used to connect devices to the internet in the same way as a mobe can be used as a hotspot with many cellular providers. This would be something the library would lend out rather than people needing to come to the library to connect.
This is about power and money.
Specifically money.
Trump is beholden to the large telcos (through campaign funding, etc) and is on a path specifically to undo all the telecoms reforms the FCC made - such as increasing competition, improving services, encouraging investment by public bodies and local governments, providing access for poorer people such as immigrants (legal or otherwise), etc
This has nothing to do with children, really.
Oh it really did, ask the MAGA lot when America was great and the ones that answer will tell you, it was when people of colour weren't allowed in the same diners or schools as the white folk, when gay people had to hide, when you could be reported to the authorities for un-American political views.
Brandon (on purpose) Carr has been in the FCC for years and spent all his time fighting against net neutrality and fighting for everything else that would benefit IP providers at the considerable expense of consumers. As such he is the perfect leader of the FCC in the Trump regime. He will bend the knee and kiss the "ring" at every opportunity, and enjoy it.
The rabble that do his bidding aren't energetic enough to qualify as barbarians, they're merely the sort of loudmouthed yet gormless and palid lickspittles who have always done the bureaucratic work of dictators. There's only one barbarian, and he's in charge.
That's what happens when people vote to have Auric Goldmember* as their president.
* Yep, I know the name is not strictly correct, but you know what I mean.
But surely they're not going to be scarce because the tariffs are going to being in bigly big dollars paid for, in some not yet explained way, by all those other countries who have been taking advantage, in some also not yet explained way, of the US.
The tariff wars have already brought in billions, which I think end up in a discretionary spending slush fund. As for who pays, that's easily explained because it's paid for by US importers, and then US consumers. Then there's additional FUN! because of the US courts deciding the tariffs might be illegal, which could trigger demands for refunds and compensation.. But being capitalism, probably won't result in price reductions for US consumers.
Oh wait. Maybe having the government pay for unfiltered internet access for children isn't such a great idea. Kids want two things on the internet: games and porn. There is nothing to keep a 7 year old from seeing the same content a 17 year old gets. My tax dollars shouldn't be paying for such an "opportunity."
The FCC has no business in this area but near-socialist Biden loved to bribe his supporters with handouts. "If it's free, think of me!" If a school system wants wifi on the buses let them provide it. If a library wants to lend access points, let them pay for it. Or find sponsors to do so. "The poor" mentioned in this case are the same ones with the latest iPhone for every family member, the hottest "celebrity" shoes on their feet, and a brand new car parked in front of their government housing. When taxpayers take care of your monthly expenses ALL of your income becomes "discretionary." They are the richest "poor" people in the world.
Admit it: you're mad because it's from Trump's administration. If there was no such program and Trump had announced its creation you'd be the same ones saying the government can't do that and that it's outside the scope of the FCC. It was a covid-era program that wasn't ended when it should have been. That has now been remedied. Nobody is being kept off the internet by this move. They aren't being censored. At worst they'll have to pay for the $30 / month "low income" internet service all ISPs offer. One dollar a day. If that's too much go to the library and use their free wifi. It's still there, ya know.
You're so completely clueless, and lost, that it's hard to know where to start. Every word you write it demonstratively stupid and false.
I'll give you this, though, congratulations on getting so much wrong in so short a post.
Are you trolling, or completely beyond hope?
Seriously, seek help, and before your library closes down, go look up what "socialism' is.
How much is trumps golfing costing the taxpayer these days?
As for "child safety", can you tell me why have ICE been told to stop looking for child traffickers, and concentrate on immigrants? https://www.reuters.com/world/us/thousands-agents-diverted-trump-immigration-crackdown-2025-03-22/
"If a school system wants wifi on the buses let them provide it. If a library wants to lend access points, let them pay for it."
That money has to come from somewhere and budgets are allocated for spending on specific things. There's no robbing the text book account to use for wi-fi on buses. There's no point in having internet access on busses since nobody is going to be using it for school work and kid's phones have internet already. I've used library connections in the past and it's a good resource that's better than sitting in a McDonalds parking lot and logging into theirs. For the library to spend money lending out hotspots like a DVD is a waste of limited resources.
Apart from the utterly deluded bullshit you wrote, do you really think it's impossible to filter content on WiFi in school buses and libraries?
The US really needs some chlorine in its gene pool and a healthy dose of socialism to wake up the idiots like you who've been groomed to believe billionaires are good for the working person.
Apart from the utterly deluded bullshit you wrote, do you really think it's impossible to filter content on WiFi in school buses and libraries?
Buses? Possibly not, but that's part of the problem, which is mostly this-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Rate#Criticism
The subcommittee found a multitude of irregularities: purchases were being made with fraudulent documentation and without competitive bidding; inadequate strategic technology plans were accepted and led to unused, wasted resources; and no protections were in place to prevent gold plating ("procurement of technology goods and services far beyond reasonable school district needs and resources") and many other forms of abuse...
...Critics point to many cases of fraud and wastefulness in the E-Rate program. Examples include $101 million in equipment which was used for nine schools in Puerto Rico, a $73 million network in Atlanta which never went through a bidding process, and a $21 million settlement from the NEC for fraud and price rigging.
Those Puerto Rico schools must have a lot of nice gaming rigs, or they got seriously ripped off, possibly by someone's mate. But also per wiki-
Yearly requests for E-Rate funding almost triple the FCC's $2.25 billion limit
That's a lot of money, and a lot of murky spending that sucks up most of the USO funds that are meant to pay for other things like supporting rural connectivity etc. But connectivity from school buses would be expected to comply with the E-Rate filtering rules and they might not be. Or they might be, but the providers get to slurp data to profile school kids. And then there's how the buses actually connect. So do school buses have a Starlink dish, or is E-Rate funding being used to create WiFi networks along bus routes, because those buses will need to connect to something.
And then is E-Rate funding being used to subsidise telco's WiFi network, which might be a GoodThing(tm) per USO or it might not.. Which might also be the problem with libraries providing mobile WiFI. If that's on their mobile libraries, that might be sensible, if it isn't, it's not the libraries business and might be more fraud and waste. Then the political spin is evil Republicans cutting schools & libraries Internet, which isn't what is happening, only an attempt to reform E-Rate or USO funding to ensure that money is being well spent.
Just a thought here but if it was me I would have equipped the buses with a mobile/cell hotspot* that ran off 4 or 5G. You can run that through the existing mobile/cell network and no extra infrastructure would be needed. Do a deal with a mobile/cellphone company for reduced rates for educational establishments and have them block the adult content like they do already in the UK, especially on my phone
*cheaper devices are available
There are many plans in the US you can get at that cost! There are currently several subsidized internet access programs that people can qualify for. One need only to look.
Comcast has internet 75/10 for $14.95
AT&T $30 / month
Verizon $20 / Mo
"subsidized"
"qualify for"
Where as on the other side of the pond we don't need govt subsidised ISP plans that we have to 'qualify for'. We just get a cheap plan.
I will reiterate that this is all thanks to the USA's crony and anti-competitive system where even after the breakup of AT&T there is still effectively a monopoly.
The large ISPs have been mandated to provide a "social tariff". It's lower speed and cheaper than their "basic" packages and often hard to find unless you go digging and AFAIK, is not subsidised in any way other than (probably) by charging a little more for their standard published packages.
Virgin Media go down to a 15Mb connection for £12.50 on a rolling monthly contract. You need to be on some form of benefits to qualify for those packages.
This post has been deleted by its author
"Highlights another issue. In the UK, $30 would get you a 500 mpbs service."
Near to me in the US, 1gbs fiber is $50 if you don't mind sharing all of your PII with them while signing up. They shouldn't have need for my DoB. All they have to do it bill me quarterly in advance and I'd send them payment. Cable just went up to an even $90 for even shittier service.
1) Be the first on the bus in the morning, and then ride an hour to school. Bring a book or talk to other kids. Just imagine learning how to interact with other kids without a device!
2) Walk a mile, be the last on the bus, and risk having the only open seat be next to the smelly kid. Get some exercise too.
Reverse the options after school. Walking that mile home always beat the ride on the bus. Gave me an alternative if the weather was really bad though. The late bus only ran the highway, so I always had to walk home during sports season.
Precisely zero kids today are pulling out their device of choice and saying 'Hey, I should do my homework online while riding the bus home'. Wifi on school busses is a waste of money. Very few kids have the hour long bus rides like I had back in the day. The few minutes they are disconnected will help them, it won't hurt them.
Perhaps reality is slightly different to the headline...
https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2024/11/how-wi-fi-enabled-school-buses-connect-students-and-drivers-learning
It would seem from the article there is benefit in putting WiFi on the buses, with the student access being a side benefit rather than the real economic reason for WiFi enablement.
Whilst I agree with those who question whether children really do continue their studies whilst on the bus, I do agree with the observation that children with something to do and distract them will tend to be better passengers than if they are bored looking for something to fill the time.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
