Back
header
header

July 12, 2013

TIP OF THE WEEK: During our summer contact period (see below), USAC will put the processing of your paper form on hold if we need more information and our attempts to reach you are unsuccessful. If you are waiting for a paper form to be processed, you can Submit a Question or call the Client Service Bureau for the status of your paper form.

Commitments for Funding Years 2013 and 2012

Funding Year 2013. USAC released Funding Year (FY) 2013 Wave 8 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) July 10 and will release Wave 9 FCDLs July 16. These waves include commitments for approved Priority 1 (Telecommunications Services and Internet Access) requests at all discount levels. As of July 12, FY2013 commitments total just under $198 million.

Funding Year 2012. USAC will release FY2012 Wave 51 FCDLs July 18. This wave includes commitments for approved Priority 2 (Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance) requests at 90 percent and denials at 89 percent and below. As of July 12, FY2012 commitments total over $2.62 billion.

On the day the FCDLs are mailed, you can check to see if you have a commitment by using USAC's Automated Search of Commitments tool.

FCC Establishes Comment Period for FY2014 Eligible Services List

On July 3, 2013 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released a Public Notice (DA 13-1513) establishing the comment period for the Eligible Services List (ESL) proposed for Funding Year 2014.

Comments on the draft ESL – which is attached to the Public Notice – are due to the FCC on or before August 2, 2013. Reply comments are due to the FCC on or before August 19, 2013. For a summary of proposed changes to the ESL and information on filing comments with the FCC, please refer to the Public Notice.

Restarting PIA Review for FCC Forms 471 in "Deferred" Status

Summer contact procedures are now in effect. This means that, if the PIA reviewer working on your application tries to reach you on or after May 24 and is not successful, your application will be put on hold and he or she will not attempt to contact you again until after September 6.

The View 471 Status tool will show the status of your application as "Deferred" if this has occurred. However, if you are available to answer questions from your PIA reviewer, you can send an email to the PIA manager for your state or territory to restart the review of your application.

For a discussion of the summer contact period – including the definition of a successful contact – you can refer to the May 24 SL News Brief.

PIA Manager

States/Territories

Donna Barrett

Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Utah, Wisconsin

Linda Clark

Arkansas, District of Columbia, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Virginia, Washington

Dusan Stamenkovic

Alaska, American Samoa, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Northern Mariana Islands, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, U.S. Virgin Islands

Sal Cooper

Alabama, Arizona, California, Guam, Indiana, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Puerto Rico, West Virginia, Wyoming

Certain FCC Forms 471 Moved to In-window Status

A number of FY2013 FCC Forms 471 were timely submitted online (i.e., the Submit button was pushed on or before 11:59 pm EDT on March 14, 2013) but not certified by the close of the filing window. USAC sent letters to the affected applicants notifying them that they must certify those forms – either online or on paper – on or before May 15, 2013 for the forms to be considered in-window.

Last week, USAC changed the status of just under 1,050 submitted applications certified after March 14 but on or before May 15 from "Certified - Out of Window" to "Certified - In Window." Applicants can check the status of their applications using either the View 471 Status tool or the View a 471 tool.

  • View 471 Status tool - Enter your Billed Entity Number, choose Year 2013, and click "Search"; then click "Continue" on the resulting information page. At the top of the following page, you will see your applications listed by FCC Form 471 Application Number and Applicant Form Identifier with the status of each form in the right-hand column. The table below the search results provides a detailed explanation of each status.
  • View a 471 tool - Enter the FCC Form 471 Application Number (you do not need the security code), click "Original," and then click "Display." The form status is located in the upper left-hand corner of the resulting web page.

On July 11, USAC issued Receipt Acknowledgment Letters (RALs) to the affected applicants and service provider RALs to the affected service providers. Because these applications are now considered in-window, they have become available for PIA review.

Applicants please note: Each year, USAC performs a single update to change the status on all timely filed applications successfully certified after the application window closes but before the extended certification deadline (May 15, 2013 for FY2013 applications). Because applicants can submit (i.e., postmark) a paper certification on the extended certification deadline, it takes several weeks for USAC to be certain that all paper certifications have been received and properly processed and that the list of applications to be updated is both correct and complete. Applicants concerned about being temporarily in an out-of-window status are encouraged to certify their applications next year before the filing window closes.

Out-of-window letters for FY2013 FCC Forms 471

Now that USAC has completed the work of identifying all FCC Forms 471 certified by the extended deadline and has moved them in-window, we will start the process of identifying the applications that are truly out-of-window.

When this process is complete, USAC will issue an out-of-window letter for each FCC Form 471 that was:

  • filed on paper and postmarked after the close of the filing window or
  • filed online on or before the close of the filing window and certified online or on paper after the extended certification deadline (for FY2013 applications, the extended certification deadline was May 15).

Note that USAC does not issue out-of-window letters for forms started online that remain in an "Incomplete" or "Complete" status. You can check the status of an FCC Form 471 by using either of the tools described above.

We will include a note in a future SL News Brief when our quality assurance work is complete and we are ready to issue out-of-window letters.

 

To subscribe, click here: Subscribe.

©1997-2013, Universal Service Administrative Company, All Rights Reserved.
USAC | 2000 L Street NW | Suite 200 | Washington, DC 20036


Back