December 8, 2017

Commitments for Funding Year 2017

Funding Year 2017. USAC is scheduled to release Funding Year (FY) 2017 Wave 29 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) on December 15. As of December 8, FY2017 commitments total over $1.94 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).

Webinar Reminder

USAC will hold a live webinar on Wednesday, December 13, 2017, at 3:00 PM EST to review highlights of the four live E-rate applicant training sessions held this fall. USAC staff will provide a brief overview of the sessions and cover basic information in each of the training presentations. Attendees will be able to post questions during the webinar, and USAC staff will answer as many questions as time allows during and at the end of the webinar.

We suggest that you register for the webinar in advance. The agenda and complete versions of the training presentations from the training sessions are available on the archived event page.

USAC will post a recording of the webinar in the Webinar Recordings section of the Online Learning Library shortly after the conclusion of the webinar.

Reminder for Applicants Applying in the Second FY2017 Application Window

In the November 9 Special Edition SL News Brief, we provided information on how to apply during the Second FY2017 Application Window for both Directly Impacted Applicants and Indirectly Impacted Schools. For applicants filing FCC Form 470 and 471, we specifically mentioned adding the prefix H2017 to the form nickname.

We have identified a number of forms where the prefix H2017 was not included in the nickname. After consulting with and receiving permission from the applicant, we are able to add this indicator to the FCC Form 470 nickname if we realize it is missing, but we are not able to add it to the FCC Form 471 nickname. Remember that applicants are also filing FCC Forms 470 for the regular FY2018 application cycle, so omitting this important indicator will make it more difficult for USAC to identify these forms correctly.

Please be sure to add H2017 to the beginning of your form nickname if you are applying for relief in the Second FY2017 Application Window.

Tasks You Can Work On This Month

Many schools and libraries will be closed for some period of time at the end of this month. Below are some tasks you can undertake now to reduce your workload in January.

1. Update your organization's profile information as needed.

FCC Registration Number. Verify that the FCC Registration Number (FCC RN) for your billed entity is correct. If you are a school district or library system, you do not need FCC RNs for each of your individual schools or library branches.

Contact information. Verify the name, physical address, mailing address, and other contact information for the billed entity and its child entities (individual schools in a school district or library branches in a library system).

New entities. For each new entity that is currently missing in your organization's profile, USAC must create the entity for you. To ask for help, open a customer service case in EPC or call the Client Service Bureau (CSB) at 888-203-8100.

Independent school/school district student counts. You can update the student counts for the students attending each of your schools.

• Use the most recent student information available, which may mean entering or keeping last year's numbers if you do not yet have this year's numbers.
• Be sure to review your entries for the "peak part-time student counts" for each school. This is the greatest number of part-time students at a single point during the school day, NOT the total number of part-time students that attend the school during the course of the entire school day.

Independent library/library system square footage and main branch. You can verify the square footage for each of your libraries and the designation of your library's main branch.

• Square footage includes all floors of the library and both public and non-public areas, but excludes areas outside of the exterior walls.
• If you are not sure how to identify the main branch of your library:
  • An independent library designates itself as its main branch.
  • If your library system does not have a designated central library outlet or main administrative office, use the library location where the library system's administrative functions, such as paying or receiving bills, are performed. However, this location cannot be a non-instructional facility (NIF).
  • A library system can designate one library location as the "main" library branch. The library system should document its rationale for designating that location as the main library branch and retain that rationale with its other program documentation.

Connectivity questions. Independent schools and independent libraries must answer the connectivity questions in their profiles. School districts and library systems must answer the connectivity questions for themselves and each of their child entities (individual schools or library branches). To access these connectivity questions, click the billed entity's name on its landing page in EPC to go to its profile page, choose Related Actions, then choose Manage Connectivity Questions. If you completed these last year, you can simply review your answers and make any necessary updates.

Contract records. Each billed entity must create a record for each contract that it will cite on an FCC Form 471. If you have completed your competitive bidding process and signed one or more contracts, you can create a record for each contract now by going to your billed entity's profile page and choosing Contracts.

List of consortium members. If you are a consortium, review your list of consortium members from your profile page. You can add members yourself if they are missing – you do not need CSB's help to do this.

2. Prepare your RFP and/or RFP documents.

If you are issuing an RFP (Request for Proposal) or one or more RFP documents, you are required to upload those documents to your FCC Form 470.

We use "RFP" and "RFP document" generically to refer to any bidding document that describes your project and requested services in more detail than that provided in the data entry fields on the FCC Form 470. An RFP document can be any formal bidding document – for example, an Invitation for Bid (IFB) or Request for Quote (RFQ) – or it could be any document issued as part of your competitive bidding process to provide more information to potential bidders.

3. Start your FCC Form 470.

You can start your FCC Form 470 for FY2018 now, save your work, and complete your form later.

As long as you have not certified your form, you can:

• Update your profile information if entity profiles are not locked. Any update to your profile information will automatically carry over to your uncertified form.
• Indicate that you have an RFP or RFP document and attach it.
• Make changes to the entries you have already provided within the form.

If you know some of the services you would like to feature on an FCC Form 470 but you are still working out others, you can file an FCC Form 470 for the services you know. You are not limited to filing a single form that contains all of the services you want to request.

Remember also that you can file Category One and Category Two services on the same or on different FCC Forms 470.