Dec. 30, 2011 SLD News Briefs

TIP OF THE WEEK: Remember that Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) is continuing to review applications during the winter contact period. We strongly urge you to respond to PIA requests for information if you or your designee is able to do so in order to continue the processing of your application.

Commitments for Funding Years 2011 and 2010

Funding Year 2011. USAC will release FY2011 Wave 28 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) January 4, 2012. This wave includes commitments for approved Priority 2 (Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance) requests at 90%. As of December 30, FY2011 commitments total just under $1.45 billion.

Funding Year 2010. USAC will release FY2010 Wave 80 FCDLs January 5, 2012. This wave can include commitments for approved Priority 2 requests at all discount levels. As of December 30, FY2010 commitments total just under $2.92 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.

January Reminders

Below are some reminders of events and deadlines that will occur in January 2012.

The FY2012 application filing window will open at noon EST on Monday, January 9, 2012. If you have not already started your preparations, you can review SL News Briefs from the last few months for information about preparing technology plans, filing FCC Forms 470, and running open and fair competitive bidding processes. We will also issue our customary Letter to the Field when the window opens to provide more specific information on window-related activities.

The last day to file an invoice for FY2010 non-recurring services is January 30, 2012. Note that you can request an invoice deadline extension if you are not able to complete and submit all of your invoices to USAC by the January 30 invoice deadline.

•Applicants file an FCC Form 472, Billed Entity Applicant Reimbursement (BEAR) Form if they have paid for services in full and want to request reimbursement for the discount amount. Applicants that have a Personal Identification Number (PIN) can file this form online. Applicants that do not have a PIN must file on paper.
•Service providers file an FCC Form 474, Service Provider Invoice (SPI) Form if they provided discounted bills to their customers and want to request reimbursement for the discount amount. Service providers can file this form online, electronically, or on paper.
The winter contact period ends January 6, 2012. After this date, Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) will resume attempts to contact you for more information about your application if they were unable to make a successful contact on or after December 23. After January 6, you must respond to requests within 15 days or PIA will act on the information it has available, which may result in a reduction or denial of funding. For more information about the winter contact period, refer to last week’s SL News Brief.

New Look and Feel for SL News Briefs and Service Provider Call Agendas

Starting in early January, we will be introducing a new look and feel for the weekly SL News Briefs and the monthly service provider call agendas to make them more functional and easier to read.

Weekly SL News Brief (issued Friday afternoons with occasional special editions during the week)

•There will be a pre-header above the banner with a short text description and subscription options.
•The banner graphic has been redesigned in blue, with the color of the header and article titles changed to match.
•The font size has been increased throughout for better legibility.
•The footer has been updated. In addition to the current information and options, the footer also provides the email address for your subscription and our Washington DC address.
Monthly service provider call agenda (issued on the Monday immediately preceding the Wednesday call)

•The banner graphic has been expanded, with blue the predominant color, and the call information is prominently featured in a separate text box.
•The font size has been increased throughout for better legibility.
•Information about the call appears in multiple places.
•A new feature has been added – a calendar item that allows you to add the call dates for the year to your Outlook calendar. (Please note that calls are sometimes moved out a day or a week to accommodate staff travel – the calendar item will direct users to the service provider conference call webpage for the most current information.)

USAC/SLD News for 12/23/2011 – Winter Contact

TIP OF THE WEEK: Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) is continuing to review applications during the next few weeks. If you are able to respond to PIA requests, we strongly urge you to do so in order to continue the processing of your application (see below).

Commitments for Funding Years 2011 and 2010

Funding Year 2011. USAC will release FY2011 Wave 27 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) December 28. This wave includes commitments for approved Priority 2 (Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance) requests at 90%. As of December 23, FY2011 commitments total over $1.38 billion.

Funding Year 2010. USAC will release FY2010 Wave 79 FCDLs December 29. This wave can include commitments for approved Priority 2 requests at all discount levels. As of December 23, FY2010 commitments total over $2.91 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.

Winter Contact Procedure Starts Today

USAC has procedures to contact applicants and service providers if more information is necessary to process a form. Below we discuss two of the most common situations where USAC needs more information:

•Problem Resolution. If USAC cannot data enter a paper form because information is missing or inconsistent, Problem Resolution will attempt to reach the contact person listed on the form (or in our database, if no contact information is provided on the form) to obtain the necessary information.
•Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) review. If USAC needs more information from an applicant to complete the review of an application, a PIA initial reviewer will use the contact information provided on the form to send questions and to inform the applicant of any correctable errors discovered on the form during review.
We realize that, during a summer period and a winter period each year, many applicants are unavailable due to extended holiday and break schedules.

•Our winter period is defined as the Friday before Christmas Day through the Friday after New Year’s Day. The dates of the current winter period are December 23, 2011 through January 6, 2012.
If our first attempt to reach you is on or after December 23, and we cannot confirm by telephone that you are available to respond to our questions, we will not begin Problem Resolution or PIA review until after January 6. However, if we have made a successful contact with you before December 23, your 15-day response clock has started and we will act on the information we have on hand if we have not heard from you by the response deadline. We define a successful contact as:

•A sent email message with no return notification of non-delivery or out-of-office response
•A sent fax with a confirmation of successful transmission
•A voicemail left at the contact person’s telephone number if the recorded greeting does not state that the contact person is out of the office
•A live person answering our call at the contact telephone number or a return call responding to our message.
If PIA has already contacted you and you wish to designate someone to answer questions in your absence, be sure to send your designee’s contact information to your PIA reviewer. If PIA has not contacted you and your designee will be checking your messages, be sure that you have provided written authorization for your designee to answer questions about your application. PIA will request this authorization in case any changes need to be made.

•Be sure your designee has sufficient knowledge of your application to respond accurately. If someone answers a call from PIA but is not in a position to answer PIA questions, make sure the PIA reviewer understands that the application review should be put on hold until you return.
Reminders:

•PIA will be actively reviewing applications during the winter period. If you can respond to PIA questions at this time, please do so – it will speed the processing of your application.
•If our first successful contact with you was before December 23, your 15-day response clock is ticking. Be sure to respond by the deadline or let us know that you need more time to prepare your response.
•Continue to monitor your preferred mode of contact if you are working. If you or your designee can respond to questions, the processing of your application can continue.
•If you are not available to respond to questions, it would be helpful for you to indicate this via your preferred mode of contact (e.g., an out-of-office message on email or voicemail). We will not continue to leave messages or send emails if we know you are unavailable.

SLD News & Tips for 12/16/11 – more Form 470 details

FCC Form 470 Filing Reminders

Congratulations to the filers of the 11,962 FY2012 FCC Forms 470 posted to the USAC website on or before Monday, December 12. The 28-day waiting period for those forms will end on January 9, 2012, and – assuming that the appropriate competitive bidding and program requirements have been met – those applicants can post FCC Forms 471 on the first day of the filing window.

Last day to post an FCC Form 470 for FY2012

Remember that February 21, 2012 is the last day that an FCC Form 470 can be posted to the USAC website and still meet the 28-day posting requirement before the window closes on March 20, 2011. If you are filing on paper, plan to send your form so that we RECEIVE it no later than February 14, as we may need to request corrections or additional information before we can complete data entry, post your form to the website, and start your 28-day clock.

Correcting an FCC Form 470

Applicants have the opportunity to make certain limited corrections to information provided on the FCC Form 470 using the Receipt Notification Letter (RNL) correction process. (USAC issues an RNL for each submitted FCC Form 470.) Instructions for submitting corrections to an FCC Form 470 are contained in the RNL.

If the correction you wish to make is not allowable under program rules, you will have to file a new FCC Form 470. One reason we suggest that you file your form early is to give yourself a chance to refile your form if necessary.

Here are some examples of information that necessitate posting a new FCC Form 470:

• Indicating on the original FCC Form 470 that you do not and will not have an RFP but then issuing one.
• Forgetting to post for a category of service on the original FCC Form 470.
• Posting for the wrong category of service on the original FCC Form 470 (see below).
• Neglecting to mention on either the original FCC Form 470 or RFP the reasons that service providers or their bids could be disqualified.

How to avoid posting for the wrong category of service

USAC will deny a funding request if the category of service posted for the funding request on the FCC Form 471 does not match the category of service posted on the FCC Form 470. In some cases, USAC may change the category of service on the FCC Form 471 from the category posted by the applicant. Applicants should therefore post for all applicable categories of service.

• A service that can appear in more than one category should be posted in both. For example, dark fiber or Interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) should be posted in both Item 8 (Telecommunications Services) and Item 9 (Internet Access) on the FCC Form 470.
• A service that could be moved from one category of service to another should be posted in both. For example, during its review of an application, USAC may move a request for On-premise Priority 1 equipment from Telecommunications Services or Internet Access to Internal Connections because the service does not meet all applicable program requirements. If USAC moves the service to Internal Connections but the applicant did not post for the service in Item 10 (Internal Connections) on the FCC Form 470, USAC will deny the request.

For more information, refer to the FCC Form 470 Instructions.

FY2012 Item 21 Attachment Deadline Reminder

The Item 21 attachment is an important component of each FCC Form 471 Block 5 funding request. This attachment contains specific information about the products and services for which discounts are being requested, together with costs and locations of those products and services and other pertinent information.

Starting last year, Item 21 attachments became a window filing requirement. Therefore, the Item 21 attachments for your FY2012 applications must be submitted to USAC on or before 11:59 pm EDT on Tuesday, March 20, 2012.

SLD Tips & News from 12/9/2011- Form 470

Commitments for Funding Years 2011 and 2010

Funding Year 2011. USAC will release FY2011 Wave 26 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) December 13. This wave includes commitments for approved Priority 2 (Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance) requests at 90%. As of December 9, FY2011 commitments total over $1.35 billion.

Funding Year 2010. USAC will release FY2010 Wave 78 FCDLs December 14. This wave can include commitments for approved Priority 2 requests at all discount levels. As of December 9, FY2010 commitments total over $2.90 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.

APPLICATION PROCESS: Form 470

Form 470, Description of Services Requested and Certification Form is the first program form applicants file to request discounts under the E-rate program. In the November 18 SL News Brief we discussed the relationship between the technology plan and the Form 470; this week we will discuss the form itself.

By posting a Form 470 on the USAC website, applicants are opening a competitive bidding process. Applicants describe the services they are requesting on the Form 470, and service providers can search Forms 470 or download summary reports of Forms 470 into a spreadsheet in order to review and respond to applicant requests.

You must file a Form 470 for FY2012 if you:

• Are seeking non-contracted tariffed or month-to-month services.
• Intend to sign a new contract.
• Signed a multi-year contract or a contract with voluntary extensions without first posting a Form 470 and following all of the competitive bidding rules of the program.

Your Form 470 MUST:

• Be based on your technology plan if you are required to have one.
• Be detailed enough for potential bidders to understand your requirements and any reasons for disqualification.
• Be posted for the correct categories of service (Telecommunications Services, Internet Access, Internal Connections, and Basic Maintenance of Internal Connections) for the services you are requesting.
• Indicate whether you have issued or will issue a Request for Proposals (RFP) and, if so, where it is or will be available to potential bidders (see below).
• Encompass all entities that will receive services – including non-instructional facilities (NIFs).
• Be posted on the USAC website for at least 28 days before you close your competitive bidding process; select a service provider; sign a contract (if appropriate); and sign, date, and submit your Form 471.
• Be certified before USAC completes the review of any funding requests based on that Form 470.

Your Form 470 MUST NOT:

• Be completed or signed by a service provider or feature a service provider as the contact person in Items 6 or 12.
• Be an encyclopedic list of services.
• Specify vendors, manufacturers, or model numbers.

28-day posting requirement

As noted above, your Form 470 must be posted on the USAC website for 28 days before you choose a service provider, sign a contract (if appropriate), and sign and submit your Form 471.

• We encourage you to take advantage of online filing, as it speeds processing, reduces errors, and provides immediate verification that your form was posted successfully. When you file online, your Form 470 is posted to the USAC website as soon as you click the “Submit” button.
• If you file your Form 470 on paper, USAC must complete data entry of your form before it can be posted. If you have errors or inconsistencies on your paper Form 470, USAC must contact you to receive the correct information before your Form 470 can be posted to the USAC website. Your 28-day clock does not start until that posting occurs.

The last possible day to post a Form 470 to the USAC website is 28 days before the Form 471 application filing window closes. For FY2012, the last possible date to post a Form 470 (and still timely file a Form 471) is February 21, 2012. We will make every effort to complete data entry and post a paper Form 470 if we RECEIVE it in by February 14, but we cannot guarantee how long the posting process will take for a paper form.

If you wait until the last possible day to post your Form 470, you will have to close your competitive bidding process, evaluate the bids received, select your service provider, sign a contract (if applicable), and sign and submit your Form 471 all on the last day of the filing window. If you know the services you want to request – or even if you only know some of them – we suggest that you post a Form 470 now for the services you know and post another Form 470 later for any other services.

Issuing an RFP

You can prepare and issue an RFP in addition to your Form 470. RFPs are not specifically required under program rules but may be required by your state or local procurement rules or competitive bidding requirements. An RFP describes the project you want to undertake in sufficient detail to inform potential bidders of the scope, location, and any other requirements for the project. You must also clearly indicate any reasons that bidders could be disqualified (in the Form 470 and/or the RFP) and provide information on any other requirements imposed by state or local procurement rules and regulations.

If you issue an RFP, you must indicate that fact and the place the RFP is available (website address, contact person in Item 6 of the form, or technical contact person in Item 12 of the form) on your Form 470. If you issue your RFP after you post your Form 470, you must start counting 28 days on the day the RFP was issued, not the date you posted your Form 470.

Forms 470 and existing contracts

If you have an existing contract, posting a Form 470 may or may not be necessary.

• A multi-year contract or contract with voluntary extensions. If you did not post a Form 470 but signed a multi-year contract or a contract with voluntary extensions, you must post a Form 470 for FY2012. You can consider your existing contract as a bid response, but you must also evaluate any other bids received. Note that if your existing contract is not the most cost-effective solution with the price of the eligible products and services as the primary factor in your bid evaluation, you will not be able to receive E-rate discounts under your existing contract for FY2012.
• A contract that resulted from properly posting a Form 470. If you posted a Form 470 and then signed a multi-year contract or a contract with voluntary extensions that covers (or will cover, if you exercise an extension) all or part of FY2012, you do not need to post a new Form 470 for FY2012 for the period covered by that contract. On Item 12 of a Form 471 funding request for services provided under that contract, you can enter the Form 470 application number for the competitive bidding process that resulted in that contract (the “establishing Form 470″).
• A contract that expires before the end of the funding year. If a contract that was signed pursuant to program rules expires before June 30, 2013, you must file a new Form 470 to open a competitive bidding process for any services that would be provided during the part of the funding year not covered by that expired contract.
• State master contracts. If you intend to purchase services from a state master contract, refer to the Reference Area documents Contract Guidance and State Replacement Contracts for more information.

Remember that the price of the eligible products and services must be the primary factor in your evaluation. You can consider other factors in your evaluation, but none of the other factors in your bid evaluation can be weighted more heavily than price.

SLD News & Tips for 12/2/2011 – Eligibility

Commitments for Funding Years 2011 and 2010

Funding Year 2011. USAC released FY2011 Wave 24 Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) December 1 and will release Wave 25 FCDLs December 6. These waves include commitments for approved Priority 2 (Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance) requests at 90%. As of December 2, FY2011 commitments total over $1.34 billion.

Funding Year 2010. USAC will release FY2010 Wave 77 FCDLs December 7. This wave can include commitments for approved Priority 2 requests at all discount levels. As of December 2, FY2010 commitments total over $2.90 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.

Revised Instructions for Forms 479 and 486 Approved

On November 25, the FCC announced the approval by the Office of Management and Budget of the revised instructions for Forms 479 and 486. The announcement is featured in Public Notice DA 11-1943.

The revised instructions include a section containing the basic requirements of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (Internet Safety Policy, Technology Protection Measure, and Public Notice and Hearing or Meeting) and also feature the new policy update requirement for schools from the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act. The new language can be found on page 5 of the revised Form 479 Instructions and pages 12-13 of the revised Form 486 Instructions.

The revised instructions are dated August 2011 and the forms – which have not changed – retain the date of April 2007.

APPLICATION PROCESS: Eligible Services

Each year, before the Form 471 application filing window opens, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) releases an Eligible Services List for the upcoming funding year. This list contains a description of the products and services that will be eligible for discounts, together with additional helpful information such as a list of ineligible products for each category of service and a glossary of terms. We suggest that you review this list before you prepare your technology plan – if one is required – and before you file a Form 470 to open your competitive bidding process.

Categories of service

There are five categories of eligible services in two funding priorities:

Priority 1

• Telecommunications Services
• Telecommunications
• Internet Access

Priority 2

• Internal Connections
• Basic Maintenance of Internal Connections

Priority 1 services are funded first. Because funding for the E-rate program is capped, we are generally not able to fund all requests for Priority 2 services. We start issuing commitments for Priority 2 requests at the highest discount level (90%) and continue down one discount level at a time (89%, 88%, and so on) until the remaining funding is insufficient to fund eligible requests at a particular discount level.

- Telecommunications services

Commonly available telecommunications services eligible for discounts include local and long distance wired telephone service; Interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP); cellular phone service, and Centrex service. Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), Primary Rate Interface (PRI), T-1, T-3, and satellite services are also eligible.

Telecommunications services must be provided by a telecommunications carrier, that is, a company that offers telecommunications services on a common carriage basis. You can use the Service Provider Identification Number (SPIN) Contact Search Tool to find information about the telecommunications carrier status of a SPIN.

- Telecommunications

Telecommunications was added as a category of service on the Eligible Services List starting in FY2011. Telecommunications covers lit or dark fiber – and certain maintenance and installation costs – not provided by a telecommunications carrier. Dark fiber is eligible if the applicant lights the dark fiber immediately; however, the costs for purchasing modulating electronics necessary to light the dark fiber are not eligible.

Telecommunications does not appear as a separate category of service on program forms. We suggest that interested applicants list these services as both Telecommunications Services and Internet Access (see below) on the Form 470 to maximize the number and type of bids they receive. Applicants would then apply for discounts on the Form 471 as Telecommunications Services if the fiber is provided by a telecommunications carrier and Internet Access if it is not.

- Internet access

Applicants can apply for discounts on basic conduit access to the Internet, but not on content, equipment purchases, or other services beyond basic conduit access. However, selected services that are an integral component part of an Internet Access service – and other services designated as eligible by the FCC – may be eligible, for example: interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), email service, and web hosting.

- Internal Connections

Internal Connections includes products such as routers, switches, hubs, and wiring. Eligible components of Internal Connections are located at the applicant site and must be necessary to transport information to classrooms or publicly accessible rooms of a library. Internal Connections do not include services that extend across a public right-of-way beyond the school or library facility.

Starting with FY2005, under the Two-in-Five Rule, eligible entities can only receive discounts for Internal Connections in two of every five funding years.

- Basic Maintenance of Internal Connections

Basic maintenance services – repair and upkeep of eligible hardware, wire and cable maintenance, basic technical support, and configuration changes – ensure the necessary and continued operation of internal connections components at eligible locations. The components themselves must be eligible for discounts for their associated basic maintenance services to be eligible.

Basic maintenance services must be for actual work performed and parts repaired or replaced. Unbundled warranties or fixed price contracts – other than for software upgrades and patches including bug fixes and security patches, and online and telephone-based technical assistance and tools – are not eligible for reimbursement unless the ineligible portions can be cost-allocated.

Some other eligibility issues to consider

Partial eligibility. If a product or service has both eligible and ineligible uses or components, the eligible portions of the product or service may still be eligible for discounts. We refer to these products or services as partially eligible. For example:

• A file server may be used both as an email server (an eligible use) and an archive server (an ineligible use)
• A phone service may be delivered to a school run by a church (an eligible location) and to the church office (an ineligible location).

To request discounts on the eligible portion of these products and services, you must do a cost allocation. There is not a single approved method to allocate eligible and ineligible costs. The method you use must use tangible criteria to reach a realistic result.

Conditional eligibility. Products and services may be eligible under certain conditions but not others. We refer to these products or services as conditionally eligible. For example:

• Basic maintenance is only eligible if it is for eligible products and services.
• A file server in conditionally eligible based on the tasks being performed. For example, if a server is being used for email, DHCP, or DNS service, the server is eligible. However, if a server is being used for running applications or archiving, the server is ineligible.

The product or service can be eligible for discounts if the appropriate conditions are met.

Ancillary use. If a product or service contains ineligible features on an ancillary basis that are not offered or priced separately, ancillary use of these ineligible features may not require a cost allocation if they meet certain requirements.

On-premise Priority 1 equipment. Equipment owned by the service provider but located at the applicant site and leased by the applicant can be eligible for discounts as a Priority 1 service if it meets specific conditions. We refer to this equipment, if eligible, as on-premise Priority 1 equipment.

Wide area networks. A wide area network (WAN) is a voice, data, or video network that provides connections from one or more computers or networks within an eligible school or library to one or more computers or networks that are external to such eligible school or library. Under certain conditions, leased WAN services can be eligible for discounts.

Educational purposes. Services must not only be eligible, but must also be delivered to eligible locations and used for eligible purposes. The customary work activities of school or library employees and customary activities that occur on school or library property are presumed to fall under the definition of educational purposes.

For more information on eligible services, refer to the guidance documents linked to Step 6: Determine the Eligible Services on the USAC website, including:

• FY2012 Eligible Services List
• Eligible Services List archive
• Cost Allocation Guidelines for Products and Services
• Educational Purposes
• On-premise Priority 1 Equipment 
• Ancillary Use of Eligible Components