As the FCC moves forward with its efforts to scrap “net neutrality,” I thought it might be worthwhile to list the education technology companies that have raised money from ISPs. After all, if there is “preferential treatment” on the Internet, it’s worth thinking about how this will affect schools’ access to various education technology products and services.

(I should note: this is an incomplete list. It doesn’t include all the funds, for example, that these large companies contribute to. It doesn’t include the investments of their executives past and present – Steve Case’s investment portfolio, for example.)

Comcast Ventures:

• College Ave (student loans)
• Quad Learning (for-profit online education)
• Viridis Learning (“skills matching” company)
• Kiwi Crate (“STEM” subscription box)

Comcast also partnered with Khan Academy to promote the latter’s online videos as part of the former’s Internet Essentials program for low-income families.

Verizon Ventures:

• School Yourself (online lessons)

AT&T:

• LearnTrials (ed-tech procurement)

AT&T runs a startup accelerator program called AT&T Aspire. Among the companies in this year’s cohort:

• Booknook (personalized textbooks)
• CareerVillage.org (career advice)
• Earshot (surveillance and voice recognition in the classroom)
• Learn Fresh (NBA statistics game)
• LiftEd (assessments for special education students)
• ListenWise (public radio stories as curriculum)
• LitLab (surveilling students’ mobile data usage and giving to parents)
• Zulama (game design)

Edsurge has also received money from the AT&T Aspire program to report on “the state of ed-tech.”

Udacity famously partnered with AT&T to offer a master's degree program at Georgia Tech.

The Future of Privacy Forum, a think tank focused on privacy issues, is also financially supported by AT&T and Comcast (along with Facebook, Google, Microsoft and others).

AT&T is also a sponsor of EDUCAUSE.