IP: FARNET's Washington Update - 5/05/98

[Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>]

FARNET's Washington Update --- May 5, 1998      


FARNET (http://www.farnet.org) is a non-profit public interest
Internetworking organization with a primary focus on the education, research
and related communities.


IN THIS ISSUE:


CONGRESS RATIFIES INTERNET DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION TAX; GIVES NSF GO-AHEAD
TO USE THE FUNDS 


SCHOOL & LIBRARY REQUESTS FOR USF FUNDS TOP $2 BILLION; CONGRESS AWAITS FCC
REPORT
_______________________________________________________________________


CONGRESS RATIFIES INTERNET DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION TAX; GIVES NSF GO-AHEAD
TO USE THE FUNDS


In a supplemental appropriations bill passed last week, Congress ratified
the domain name registration tax and authorized the National Science
Foundation to use the funds for NGI and related projects.
(http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c105:H.R.3579:) Just three weeks
earlier, U.S. District Court Judge William Hogan had ruled that the
"Intellectual Infrastructure Fund"(IIF) fee collected by Network Solutions,
Inc. as part of every Internet domain name registration was an illegal tax;
he reasoned that although within its power, Congress had not passed
sufficiently explicit legislation allowing the tax and the use of its
proceeds by the National Science Foundation. (See FARNET's 4/10/98
Washington Update for related article:
http://www.farnet.org/contents/update/1998/19980410.html)


Last year Congress appropriated a portion of the IIF monies to the NSF for
its fiscal year 1998 work on the Next Generation Internet (NGI) project
(http://www.ngi.gov). The court challenge prohibited the NSF from accessing
the fund.


NSI ceased charging domain name registrants the 30 percent portion
allocated for the IIF at the end of March, 1998. Approximately $56 million
had been collected to that date, with $23 million slated specifically for
the NSF's NGI work. (http://www.farnet.org/contents/update/funding.html)
This latest congressional legislation directs the NSF to utilize any
remaining IIF funds for NGI and other related networking projects, such as
support for connections to the NSF's very high performance Backbone Network
Service (vBNS).  






SCHOOL & LIBRARY REQUESTS FOR USF FUNDS TOP $2 BILLION; CONGRESS AWAITS FCC
REPORT  


The Schools and Libraries Corporation (SLC) (http://www.slcfund.org/)
reported to the FCC Friday that schools and libraries nationwide have
requested approximately $2.02 billion in universal service fund support for
1998. (The SLC figure is an estimate based on a sampling of the 30,000-plus
applications that have been received so far.)  The school and library fund
has a statutory cap of $2.25 billion per year . 


The FCC must now determine how much to collect from telecommunications
carriers for the remainder of 1998.   The $2.02 billion demand reported by
the SLC apparently exceeds some expectations.  The FCC last December chose
to cap telecom providers' contributions to the fund at $675 million for the
first half of 1998, citing a probable lack of demand.   Now there appears
to be a potential shortfall; contributions may have to be increased during
the second half of 1998 to make up the difference and meet the requests of
the 30,000 or so schools and libraries nationwide.  


The FCC is to submit a report to Congress by May 8 providing data on the
program (including the SLC demand figure). The report is also expected to
include information on how it might streamline the administration of the
USF program. (See FARNET's 3/31/98 Washington Update for related article:
http://www.farnet.org/contents/update/1998/19980331.html) 


__________________________________________________________________________


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