More than a half-million low-income and rural classrooms soon will have Internet access, thanks to funding approved by the Federal Communications Commission.

The FCC on May 27 approved the maximum $2.25 billion allowed for funding, the Associated Press reported.

The commission's rules allow it to earmark up to $2.25 billion a year for the education-rate program, or E-rate, AP reported. This funding will benefit some 40 million kids.

Schools and libraries will share the amount, an increase of nearly $1 billion above current levels. The FCC ruling came amid concerns that phone companies will pass on increased costs to customers.

The increase could mean a hike in phone rates of $22.50 per household per year, according to Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth, while Larry Strickling, chief of the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau, said the increase would be more like $4 a year per phone line. He said the program gets some of its costs from wireless subscribers, who were not included in the staff calculations.

Funding supporters maintain that an increase will be offset by about $1 billion in long-distance fee savings later this year. Those reductions, however, have come into question in light of a federal appeals court ruling that said explanations of the fee calculations were inadequate.

Responding to criticisms about cost, FCC Chairman Bill Kennard said, "We can't afford to leave poor kids in America in the dark ages." The program's second full fiscal year begins July 1, and more than 32,000 applications already have been filed.

The FCC anticipates that the program will be able to fund all requests for Internet access and telecommunications services.

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