Pursuing my own priorities, I forgot to speculate on what most people want to know from the Demand Estimate: what will the Priority Two denial threshold be?
First, the executive summary: the funding cap is up 1.8%, P1 demand is up 11%, P2 demand is up 31%. So it's ugly. How ugly?
OK, well let's assume that 10% of applications are denied. If that's true, then USAC will only need $58 million to cover P1. No problem. But to cover P2 requests for 90% applicants, they'll need $1.6 billion. That's going to require some stretching. And they're already stretched thin after last year's rollover.
Very ugly, Could this be the first year of no P2 funding? I just hope the FCC doesn't resort to pro-rating funding for 90% applicants. Pro-rating would be incredibly ugly.
And the real ugliness is getting close. If P1 demand keeps going up by 10% per year, 2 years from now USAC will need a $475 billion rollover just to cover P1. The year after, $720 billion.
The money is running out fast.
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