The Federal Communications Commission has issued a correction to its recently released Eligible Services List for 2005 that clarifies that a proxy server will be considered eligible for E-rate discounts "if it provides basic and reasonable security protections to prevent unauthorized access to the information, software and systems of an applicant's eligible components." In the reference to eligible network file servers, "firewall/proxy servers" are also now listed as eligible.
In addition, the definition of eligible network router has been modified to exclude proxy services from a list of features that are not considered eligible. The definition now reads "Some products may have modules or features that are not eligible, such as functionality for content filtering, management, caching and Virtual Private Networks." The definition of eligible gateway has also been modified in accordance with this change.
The FCC issued a draft eligible services list in mid-August and released what was described as its final list on October 14. Schools and Libraries Division officials said last week that they had held off posting that version of the list on their Web site because, they said, some corrections needed to be made.
