No internet, no screen time? FCC weighs cutting subsidy that lowers school internet bills
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Bocher, who helped work on the original law back in the '90s, worries the program could become so onerous it drives schools and libraries away by design.

"It's like death by a thousand cuts," he says, "death by a thousand rules and regulations."

Keeping up with the rest of the world

While internet access has expanded significantly since 1996, internet pricing and options haven't changed the way Bocher or his contemporaries expected.

"A common assumption that a lot of people had [was] … competition will evolve," he says. "And then drive down the price."

In cities, this may be true, but for many rural and remote areas, competition for internet service providers or ISPs is nonexistent.

"In rural Alaska, we don't have numerous options," says Patrick Mayer, superintendent for the remote Alaska Gateway School District. "We have one provider."

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