April 24, 2020

Funding Year (FY) 2020 FCC Form 471 Filing Window Countdown

The Funding Year (FY) 2020 application filing window will close on Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 11:59:59 p.m. EDT.

TIP OF THE WEEK: Plan to take advantage of the extra hours the Client Service Bureau (CSB) is open during the last five days of the application filing window. Please don't wait until the last minute to ask your questions or to start working on your FCC Form 471.

Commitments for Funding Year 2019

Funding Year 2019. USAC released FY2019 Wave 56 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) on April 23. As of April 24, FY2019 commitments total over $2.30 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).

CSB Extended Hours

Here is a reminder of the extended hours CSB will be open during the last five days of the filing window.

If an agent is not able to answer when you call, please open a customer service case in EPC and we will respond as quickly as possible.

More Tips for First-time FCC Form 471 Filers

In the last week's SL News Brief, we provided some FCC Form 471 tips for first-time filers. Below are some additional tips to keep in mind during this last week of the FCC Form 471 application filing window.

Returning to an incomplete FCC Form 471

We strongly encourage you not to use the SAVE AND SHARE button that appears at the bottom of many of the entry screens of your form. This button will send a task to everyone in your organization to continue working on the form except you.

Instead, if you are not finished, you can click the SAVE & CONTINUE button to save your work on the current page and then exit the browser. EPC will create a task for you under the Tasks tab and in the My Tasks list on your landing page to return to the form and complete your data entry.

If you have provided all of the required information but you are not a full-rights user, you can click the SEND FOR CERTIFICATION button in EPC to create a task for all full-rights users to be able to access, review, and certify the form.

Certifying the FCC Form 471

You can certify the FCC Form 471 yourself if you are a full-rights user for this form. Check with your account administrator if you believe you should have these rights but are unable to certify your form.

Remember that sending a form to full-rights users in your organization will mean that you will no longer have access to edit the form. You do have to ability to review the information you provided on a PDF version of the form before you send it for certification, and full-rights users also must review that PDF version before they can proceed to certification.

Correcting information on the FCC Form 471 after it is certified

You are not limited to correcting entity profile information with the RAL modification option. You can file RAL modifications to correct any information on the form, including editing the information you have provided on a funding request or even adding or removing a funding request. Note that your PIA reviewer may have questions for you about the reason(s) you have for the changes you request.

Certifying the FCC Form 471 after April 29, 2020

You must wait at least 28 days after your FCC Form 470 was certified before you can choose a service provider, sign a contract, and certify an FCC Form 471. If you certified your FCC Form 470 after April 1, 2020 or your FCC Form 471 is late for another reason, follow these steps:

• Make sure your 28-day waiting period has passed.
• Choose your service provider and, if applicable, sign a contract.
• Complete and certify your FCC Form 471 in EPC. You will still be able to certify your form after April 29, 2020, but you will receive an out-of-window status for the form.
• You can then request a waiver of the window filing requirement from the FCC. Please note that your waiver request may or may not be granted.