The latest Funds for Learning newsletter has a link to a letter from USAC to the FCC about rollover funds. The letter says that a total of just over $1 billion is available. Then the shocker: "We believe such funds would be sufficient to make commitments at the 90% discount level for Priority 2 requests for Funding Year 2012." Wow, I didn't think that problem would be over so soon.
So borrowing my math from a previous post, for 2012-2013, demand plus P2 demand from 90% applicants totals over $3.8 billion. The fund cap is set at $2,338,786,577. add $1,050,000,000 from the rollover, and you've got $3,388,786,577. So the funding is only sufficient to cover the funding if USAC denies 11% of applications. I think that's in line with historical data, although of course we can't use recent history, since USAC is still working on funding approvals for 2010-2011 (to say nothing of 2011-2012).
So my prediction that the FCC would have to wait until after the funding year to accumulate enough funding to cover 90% applicants was wildly pessimistic. I can hear the utterances of frequent readers, dripping with sarcasm: "What?! This blog pessimistic? Well, I never!"
So the impending no-funding-for-P2 train wreck is put off for another year. But the train wreck is coming.
No comments:
Post a Comment