October 20, 2017

Commitments for Funding Years 2017 and 2016

Funding Year 2017. USAC is scheduled to release Funding Year (FY) 2017 Wave 22 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) on October 27. As of October 20, FY2017 commitments total over $1.58 billion.

Funding Year 2016. USAC is scheduled to release Wave 67 FCDLs on October 24. As of October 20, FY2016 commitments total just under $2.91 billion.

On the date that FCDLs are issued, you can access your FCDL notification from the Notifications section of your landing page in the E-rate Productivity Center (EPC).

Update on Fall Training

Registration is still open for the following USAC fall training sessions:

Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 2

Embassy Suites Minneapolis Downtown
12 Sixth Street South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55402

Portland, Oregon on November 14

DoubleTree Hotel Portland
1000 NE Multnomah
Portland, Oregon 97232

You can register for either of these training sessions on the Upcoming Events section of the Trainings & Outreach page on the USAC website.

Note that attendees will make their own arrangements for hotels and meals.

PQA Requests for Information Are Going Out

The Payment Quality Assurance (PQA) assessment program is underway. PQA is a program that assesses E-rate payments made on invoices submitted during the past 12 months to verify that the payments were properly made – in other words, that all program rules were followed correctly when the payment was authorized and disbursed.

Emails notifying applicants whose payments have been selected for PQA are being sent from the domain name usac.i-sight.com. Please check your email and respond promptly if you receive an email from USAC's PQA Program. Also check your spam folder or junk email folder to see if it contains an email from this domain. This will help expedite your review.

• Do not hesitate to contact your reviewer if you have questions. Contact information is provided in the email.
• Also, contact your PQA reviewer if you are unable to respond by the deadline.

For disbursements made each month, a certain number of payments will be chosen, and applicants will be asked to provide specific documentation – for example, customer bills that support invoices submitted to USAC – to verify that those payments were made correctly. It is important that you maintain proper documentation in order to be able to respond correctly and completely to PQA requests.

EPC Update

Last night, USAC deployed some new functionality in EPC. Below is a summary of the changes you can see today:

New Terms of Service

All EPC users must accept new Terms of Service before they can access – or continue to access – the functions and features of EPC. These new terms are posted on the USAC website, and they will also be presented each time a user logs in to EPC until the terms are accepted.

If you are a new user –

When your user account is created – either by your account administrator or by the Client Service Bureau (CSB) – follow these steps:

• Go to the EPC login screen.
• Click the Accept button.
• Enter your username (your email address) and click the Reset Password link.
• You will receive an email with a link to log in with your username and create a password.
• Use your new password to log in to EPC.
• You will be taken to a screen in the Tasks menu that has a task that features a large check mark in a box and the caption Complete Terms and Conditions. Click on the task.
• Read the Terms of Service and click the Accept button at the bottom of the screen.
• You will now be able to access your EPC user account and your organization's account.

If you are an existing user –

• Go to the EPC login screen.
• Click the Accept button.
• Enter your username (your email address) and password.
• You will be taken to the new Terms of Service page. Read the terms of service and click Accept. You must complete this task before you can access any other features of EPC.

Appeals

When filing an appeal, all appellants are now able to do the following:

• Select an appeal decision, appeal type, and appeal category.
• Filter information by the Request ID (the identification number for your appeal) and view the appropriate Request ID in a new column.
• Filter information by the Request Type (the type of appeal) and view the appropriate Request Type in a new column.
• View helper text that provides additional information in the following locations:
  • On the completion screen immediately after filing the appeal.
  • On the summary page for an appeal that has already been submitted.
  • On the News post that is generated immediately after the appeal is filed.

FCC Form 486

You can now view revised FCC Form 486 certifications and revised Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) certifications in the summary section of the form record after the FCC Form 486 Notification Letter has been generated.

Service substitutions

Service providers can now submit global service substitutions.  Global service substitutions are filed by service providers to substitute one product for another across ALL Funding Request Numbers (FRNs) that feature that service provider's Service Provider Identification Number (SPIN).

To submit a global service substitution:

• From your landing page or from the Actions tab, choose Contact Us. This will open a customer service case.
• Choose Global Service Substitution from the Topic menu and provide all of the requested information. You can refer to the section of the Service Substitutions document on the USAC website labeled "Global" Service Substitutions for a detailed description of the information to include.
• After you review your information for completeness and accuracy, click Submit.
• Your submission will go to USAC's services team, who will contact you if they have any questions.
• You and the applicant will be notified through a Revised FCDL of the results of USAC's review of your request.

Note that the last day to request a service substitution is the last day to receive services on an FRN. This information has now been updated in EPC.

COMAD process

Notifications related to the Commitment Adjustment (COMAD) process have now been automated. (COMAD refers to the process USAC follows when we discover that funds have been committed in error. When this occurs, we must rescind the commitments and – if applicable – recover the portion of the funds that have been improperly disbursed. RIDF is the acronym we use for the Recovery of Improperly Disbursed Funds.)

The Commitment Adjustment Letter (CAL), the first letter issued the applicant and/or the service provider, provides the details about the COMAD and next steps.

The affected applicants and/or service providers will now receive the following:

• A News post in EPC regarding a CAL and/or RIDF notification.
• An email about the CAL and/or RIDF notification with a hyperlink to the corresponding News post.
• A PDF of the CAL and/or RIDF letters, which will include hyperlinks to the appropriate sections of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) website. The PDF will be attached to the email and to the News post.
• CALs will display a Total Commitment Adjustment and a Total Amount to Be Recovered. RIDF letters will display a Total Amount to Be Recovered.
• Excel files corresponding to the CAL and/or RIDF letters will be attached to both the email and the News post.