WASHINGTON — President Obama is expected on Thursday to call on the Federal Communications Commission to expand its program to provide discounted high-speed Internet service to schools and libraries, even if it means increasing the fees that are tacked on to consumers’ monthly phone bills.
At an event at a school in Mooresville, N.C., on Thursday, Mr. Obama will ask the F.C.C. to revamp its Schools and Libraries program, known as E-rate, to help provide institutions with Internet speeds of up to 1 Gigabit per second, among the fastest speeds commercially available today.
The Obama proposal also calls for schools to use the new funds to pay for wireless networks throughout their buildings and campuses. To pay for the technology expansion, the administration is calling both for the F.C.C. to improve the efficiency of the current $2.2 billion program and for consumers to be asked to pay up to $5 a year extra, or about 40 cents a month, on their phone bills.
The Schools and Libraries program is part of the Universal Service Fund, an $8.7 billion program that distributes money for four uses. Nearly half of the money, $4.2 billion, goes to what is known as the High-Cost program, which helps to pay for telephone and