WASHINGTON, D.C. – October 14, 2026 – INCOMPAS, the competitive communications and AI infrastructure association, filed comments yesterday with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in response to the Commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on promoting fair and open competitive bidding and modernizing the E-Rate program.
“A school with an Internet connection today is not guaranteed an affordable, secure connection tomorrow. As schools adopt AI and other bandwidth-intensive tools, the Commission should modernize E-Rate to meet those needs, preserve competitive choice and tailor its program integrity rules to the roles participants actually play,” said Taylor Abshire, Attorney and Policy Advisor, INCOMPAS.
In its filing, INCOMPAS recommended that the Commission:
- Evaluate the continued need for E-Rate based on the ongoing affordability, capacity, reliability and security of school and library networks, rather than the presence of an Internet connection alone.
- Preserve support for special construction, lit and dark fiber, and self-provisioned networks, with price remaining the primary factor in bid evaluation.
- Maintain the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) framework tied to E-Rate funding while respecting local educational and content decisions.
- Narrow the proposed definition of “consultant” to exclude entities performing only ordinary commercial functions, while preserving generally applicable program integrity obligations.
- Expand Category Two eligibility to cover cybersecurity equipment, software and services through a functional, technology-neutral standard.
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