FCC Commits Over $169 Million in Emergency Connectivity Funding

The Federal Communications Commission announced that it is committing $169,297,501.79 million in its latest wave of Emergency Connectivity Fund program support, which will connect over 500,000 students in 47 states, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. These additional commitments bring the current total commitments to over $3.2 billion. The funding can be used to support off-campus learning, such as nightly homework and virtual learning, as schools and libraries continue to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This funding round will support 492 schools, 70 libraries, and 10 consortia, which are approved to receive over 380,000 connected devices and over 135,000 broadband connections. Total commitments to date have connected approximately 10.6 million students, and are supporting 7,535 schools, 692 libraries, and 91 consortia for over 7.1 million connected devices and nearly 3.5 million broadband connections.