FACT SHEET: Government Programs Designed to Close the Divide

FALLING THROUGH THE NET: DEFINING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE, July 1999

This report on the telecommunications and information technology gap in America provides comprehensive data on the level of access by Americans to telephones, computers, and the Internet. It includes valuable information about where Americans are gaining access, what they are doing with their online connections, and provides trendline information since 1984.

According to the report, the number of Americans accessing the Internet has grown rapidly in the last year; yet, in the midst of this general expansion, the "digital divide" between information "haves" and "have nots" continues to widen.

Overview:

The dramatic surge in the number of Americans connected to the nation's information infrastructure can be attributed, in part, to several government initiatives. Pro-competition policies at the national and state levels are helping reduce prices for consumers. The increased competition among personal computer (PC) providers and lower manufacturing costs have resulted in bringing down the costs of PCs to well below $1,000. Increased competition among manufacturers has also reduced prices of other Internet accessing devices such as televisions, palm computers and Internet phones, further improving access to information technologies.

The Universal Service program has made basic telecommunications services accessible to the public at reasonable and affordable costs. In 1996, Congress expanded the goal of this program to cover advances in telecommunications and information technologies, and required "reasonable comparability" of services and rates between rural and urban areas. The Federal Communications Commission's (FCC's) Universal Service Fund, a key component of the program and funded at $1.7 billion in 1998, helps telecommunications carriers mitigate the high costs of providing service to consumers in rural and insular parts of the country. Totaling $500 million in funding in 1998, the FCC's low-income support takes two basic forms. The Lifeline Assistance program helps low-income households pay monthly service bills. The Link-Up America program helps low-income subscribers pay the installation costs required to initiate service. Almost every state participates in at least one of the two programs. These efforts have contributed to the relatively high telephone penetration rate (94.1 percent) among U.S. households.

The Clinton Administration also worked with Congress to enact legislation that extends universal service to schools, libraries, and rural health care providers, enabling them to access the Internet more easily. This has been done through the E-rate program, which requires telecommunications carriers to provide, upon request by an eligible school or library, commercially available telecommunications services at a discounted rate. Discounts range from 20 to 90 percent, with the highest discounts accruing to the most economically or geographically disadvantaged schools and libraries. Total expenditures for the program are capped at $2.25 billion. The FCC has voted to support full funding of the program starting July 1, 1999. The program has helped connect more than 80,000 schools and libraries and helped numerous children and adults learn how to use new technologies through new points of access to the Internet.

In addition, the U.S. Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service provides targeted lending to and technical advice to help establish advanced telecommunications infrastructures in rural communities.

The Administration has also launched a public/private sector initiative to provide Internet functionality at community access centers such as schools, libraries and other public access facilities. The U.S. Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) was one of the first programs to fund Community Access Centers(CAC) through its Telecommunications Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TIIAP). The U.S. Department of Education's Community Technology Centers (CTC) program will enable the funding of CACs in economically distressed communities on a broader scale. Companies have also donated computers and software to neighborhood centers in support of this access effort.

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  Note:   Press Contact:                                  For Report Details, contact:
          Mary Hanley, (202) 482-2075                     Kelly Levy, (202) 482-1880
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