The 707 participants chosen include 645 schools and districts, 50 libraries and 12 consortia of schools and libraries from all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and several tribal lands, according to the announcement. These pilot entities will receive a combined $200 million in funding for cybersecurity measures over the course of three years.
They were chosen from a pool of more than 2,700 applicants representing $3.7 billion in cybersecurity funding requests, based on their ability to represent the cybersecurity needs of large, small, urban and rural schools and libraries. Emphasis was given to low-income and tribal applicants, per the FCC.
Information from the pilot will be used to decide whether and by how much the FCC should expand its E-rate program to include funding for cybersecurity measures. E-rate uses Universal Service Fund dollars to help schools and libraries pay for telecommunications and Internet services, but does not fund cybersecurity measures beyond a basic firewall.
The pilot will examine the effect of cybersecurity funding for schools and libraries across four categories: advanced firewalls; endpoint protection; identity protection and authentication; and monitoring, detection and response.
“Through this program, we will be able to provide our federal, state and local government partners with actionable data about the most effective and coordinated way to address the growing cyber needs of schools and libraries,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a public statement.
The amount of funding each entity receives will vary based on its cybersecurity needs. Those chosen must now provide more detailed cybersecurity information to the FCC, seek competitive bids for cybersecurity equipment and services, and report specific data to the FCC. That’s according to a 32-page public notice released Thursday, which features the full list of pilot participants.
