July 12, 2019

TIP OF THE WEEK: Register now for our July 17 office hour webinar on the FCC Form 470 and competitive bidding. To prepare your questions in advance, we suggest that you review the Competitive Bidding presentation and the updated FCC Form 470 video series by clicking the associated links on the Webinars page.

Commitments for Funding Years 2019 and 2018

Funding Year 2019. USAC released Funding Year (FY) 2019 Wave 11 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) on July 5 and Wave 12 FCDLs on July 11. As of July 12, FY2019 commitments total over $1.08 billion.

Funding Year 2018. USAC released FY2018 Wave 59 FCDLs on July 2. As of July 12, FY2018 commitments total over $2.20 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 BEAR Notification Letters

We recently became aware that some applicants who filed FCC Forms 472 (BEAR Forms) in calendar year 2019 did not receive their BEAR Notification Letters. The service providers listed on the funding requests in those BEAR Forms may have also not received their copies of these letters.

Consequently, we have reprinted and mailed BEAR Notification Letters to all applicants who submitted BEAR Forms that we processed between December 21, 2018 and June 14, 2019 (including to those that may have previously received the letters), and also reprinted and mailed copies of the letters to the associated service providers. These letters are all dated July 8, 2019. If you previously received a BEAR Notification Letter for BEAR Forms that were processed between December 21, 2018 and June 14, 2019 with a different date, these new letters replace the previous letters.

FCC Issues NPRM on Category Two Budgets

The FCC has released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) (FCC 19-58, released July 9, 2019) that proposes to make the Category Two budget approach permanent, and also seeks comment on potential modifications that could simplify the budgets, decrease the administrative burden of applying for Category Two services, and thereby speed the deployment of Wi-Fi in schools and libraries across the country.

Comments on the NPRM are due 30 days after the publication of the NPRM in the Federal Register. Reply comments are due 45 days after publication of the NPRM in the Federal Register. To submit comments, follow the instructions in the Filing Comments and Reply Comments paragraph in the NPRM.

Training Updates

Service providers and applicants are continuing to register for USAC's in-person training sessions. You can register on the 2019 Training page on the USAC website.

• If registration for a training session is full, participants can register for the waitlist for that event. The session will still be listed under the Event Registration heading, but will be preceded by the word "Waitlist." We will accept people who are waitlisted as slots open up due to cancellations.
• Once the waitlist has reached 40 members, we will close the waitlist. At that point, the training link will disappear from the 2019 Training page. However, we will continue to accept people who are waitlisted as we receive cancellations.

A few reminders:

• The applicant Tribal training session in Vancouver, WA is a morning session only. We encourage attendees to stay for the half-day beginner and/or full-day training sessions that follow. The other two Tribal training sessions are all-day sessions that provide information of interest to Tribal applicants.
• Service providers can also register for the training and other informational sessions for the Rural Health Care, Lifeline, Contributors, and High Cost Programs that will be held on Wednesday, August 7, between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. EDT. Those sessions do not conflict with the E-rate training sessions held during that week. Please note that some of these sessions are full. 

USAC Seeks IT Enhancement Feedback

The Share Your E-rate Technical System Ideas page continues to be available for program participants to submit their ideas and feedback for improving and/or enhancing Schools and Libraries information systems.

We may ask you for additional information about any suggestions you submit to us. However, if you do not wish to be contacted by USAC, simply notify us by email.

If you have specific inquiries or requests for assistance, please create a customer service case in EPC or call Client Service Bureau at 888-203-8100.