On-Tech E-Rate Musings

2012-02-10T22:46:00.001-05:00

So Wednesday the FCC denied 23 appeals because they were filed late. I'm not saying that any of the appeals should be granted, and I agree the FCC has to put its foot down at some point. I just find it amusing that only 2 of the 23 appeals was decided within 90 days, as required by FCC regulation.

Let's make a new rule: the FCC cannot deny appeals for being filed late if the decision is filed too late.

Snarkiness aside, these appeals actually follow the trend of more timely appeal decisions from the FCC. The vast majority of the appeals were from 2011, which is much quicker turnaround than I'm used to.

Confirmed: 2-in-5 Rule Fails Again

2012-02-02T09:11:00.000-05:00

Just a little tidbit from the latest USAC Board meeting in DC (courtesy of Funds for Learning): "The SLD reported to the Board that they anticipate the final FY2011 P2 threshold to be 87%...." Given the FCC's willingness to upend the funding landscape willy-nilly, I'm surprised the SLD is even making estimates any more.

As you might expect, I find this to be cause for griping:

First, the obligatory "can the 2-in-5 Rule" rant. Once again, Priority Two funding will not reach 80-90% of applicants. And it's the same 80-90% each year. That's 7 straight years of failure. Absent bizarre rollover gymnastics, the 2-in-5 Rule is totally ineffective in spreading the P2 wealth. Worse, the 2-in-5 Rule is harmful.
The second half of the sentence I quoted in the opening: SLD "did not make an official recommendation to drop the threshold below its current 90% level.." So here we are, more than halfway through the year, and we still haven't even moved the denial threshold below 90%. So far from my dream of setting the P2 threshold before the start of the funding year.

So what should the FCC do right now? Well, it's a little late, but they should set the denial threshold for FY 2011 at 90%. That would allow applicants with discounts less than 90% to fling up repeat P2 requests for 2012. Then set the denial threshold for 2012 right now. Be conservative, set it at 88%. See how that goes, and gradually the FCC will be able to set the denial threshold when they release the Eligible Services List. Imagine.

Digital Literacy Corps moving in next door

2012-01-31T09:46:00.000-05:00

The monthly Washington Update from the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) informs us that the FCC Chairman has decided not to use the E-Rate to fund the Digital Literacy Corps. Back in October, the Chairman seemed to be planning to fund it from the E-Rate, but the pushback from E-Rate stakeholders has apparently made him rethink that.

Good news for the E-Rate, which is already short on funds (and getting shorter). And Lifeline is the catchy name for the Universal Service Fund Low Income Program, which is not capped, so the change will not be taking funding away from anyone.

Of course, I have to look for the downside. I don't imagine this Digital Literacy Corps will cost much, but whatever the cost is, it will increase the size of the USF, which means increasing the contribution from service providers, which means higher prices on everyone's bills, which means more political opposition to the USF. Not a big concern, but I've been worrying since Obama took office that mission creep in the USF will put the squeeze on the E-Rate. Now it seems that a direct squeeze on the E-Rate was avoided only because of advocacy by organizations like CoSN, and we're still looking at an indirect squeeze.

And as I've said before the Digital Literacy Corps is not really necessary. Libraries are already running digital literacy classes, as are many school districts. But if they want to give the existing effort a catchy name, I'm OK with that. Let's not spend too much money on it, though, OK?

Throw Competition out of the Window

2012-01-30T17:48:00.001-05:00

It's official: the FCC does not want E-Rate applicants to lower their telecommunications costs. Well, at least USAC believes that's so.

In the latest News Brief, USAC talks about the heinous new rules for changing service providers (called an "Operational SPIN change"). Mostly, it just restates the bad news from the Sixth Report and Order: 1) you can only change service providers for a legitimate reason, and 2) you have to switch to the second-place finisher in the bidding from the original 470.

But then comes a new clarification of the rule: "Changing service providers because the services are available at a lower cost from another provider ... [is] not considered [a] legitimate reason for change...." Crap.

This means that applicants are locked into prices for no good reason. Let's take this example: I post a 470 which includes local and long distance for 20 POTS lines, get no bids (not unusual), stick with my existing service provider and file a Form 471 in March. In April, along comes a new service provider with lower prices. Sorry, I can't take advantage of the lower prices until the following July, 15 months later. What a waste of local tax money and E-Rate funding.

The problem is the filing window. The FCC wants to maintain the fiction that the Form 470 process increases fair and open competition. I don't agree, but fine, let them have their fig leaf. But there is a solution that gives applicants the flexibility to switch to a more cost-effective service at any time, while preserving the 470 sacred cow. The crux of the solution is that the procurement process should be decoupled from the filing window. Three changes are required:

Unhinge the 470 from Funding Years. I already suggested here this should be done, and SECA made it part of a formal filing with the FCC.
Allow applicants to choose a new service provider at any time, as long as they post a Form 470 for 28 days.
Do not require that contracts used to justify pre-discount amounts on the Form 471 cover the entire funding year. Actually, don't require that the contracts cover any part of the funding year. Actually, don't require any contract.

I had you until that last one, right? I know it seems whacked, but hear me out. Why do contracts need to be signed in the window? It's not like you're getting any actual funding when you file a Form 471. (As SECA has noted, you're not even getting a real commitment.) You're just setting a cap on the funding you'll receive later when SPIs or BEARs are filed. So while applicants should have some justification for how they arrived at the pre-discount amount on the Form 471, let's allow them to use the cost of existing service, an existing contract or a quote for new service.

The Form 471 as a Description of Services Ordered only made sense before the invention of the filing window. Now it makes no sense to require fictitious contracts months before the start of service. (The contracts are fictitious because actual contracts would be illegal.) The name of the form should be changed to Description of Services to be Ordered Later When We Have an Approved Budget and We're Ready to Start Using the Services.

If I were king, every year applicants would file a Form 471 in March (actually, King Dan would make it May) with estimates on spending, and after application review, funding caps are set. Then whenever applicants want, they post a Form 470, collect bids for 28 days, then select a service provider. Move the "I ran a fair and open competition to select this service provider" certification to the BEAR (or the Form 486, if you must). I guess, actually, it makes sense to move SPIN selection to the 486, so that USAC doesn't make itself crazy with SPIN changes.

If you end up with a higher price after posting a 470, tough luck. But I don't think that would happen often, given the direction of telecommunications and network equipment trends.

Free the competition!

Let's

Common Sense comes to the E-Rate

2012-01-26T16:13:00.000-05:00

I just learned of a resource that I thought I'd pass along.

As all you school folk should know by now, the FCC has implemented a change to CIPA requirements effective July 1, 2012. By that time, schools need to update their Internet safety policies to “provide for the
education of minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response."

Shortly after the law was passed in 2008,a couple of vendors started offering canned curricula to meet this requirement, and have sent out unsavory marketing emails with dire and misleading warnings about loss of E-Rate funding, and offering to provide a "appropriate online behavior curriculum" for a price.

Now it is actually time for dire warnings: comply with the new requirement by July 1 or lose funding. And today, I learned of a free resource for curriculum from Common Sense Media. I think you have to register (giving your name, email address and school) to get the content, but it's free and looks comprehensive.

(By the way, for you parents out there, Common Sense Media also offers pretty good movie reviews when you're wondering if the latest movie releases are appropriate for Junior.)

E-Rate milestone

2012-01-19T00:21:00.000-05:00

How did this escape my notice? A better question: why wasn't this the subject of a News Brief?

Ever looked at a 470 number? At first glance it just looks like a painfully long string of numbers that you have to enter in FRN after FRN when you're filling the 471. But those of us who have looked at thousands of them see a pattern: a 5-digit random number (hey, just like the PIN for a 471), then 4 zeroes, then a 6-digit number. And that 6-digit number is sequential, just like the 471.

But no more! On January 16th, the Archbishop Borders Elementary School clicked Submit on Form 470 #185380001000000. That's right, the millionth 470 has been filed! Cue the confetti!

Well, it's only the millionth 470 created, not submitted, but don't rain on my confetti.

So usually the millionth customer gets some kind of prize. What would be an appropriate prize?

Nearing compliance

2012-01-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

Three appeal decisions hit the streets today. One is a single appeal, but the other two are big piles of waivers, one for late 471 filings, one for late 486 filings. Two things struck me:

The FCC made no attempt to explain why the appeals were granted or denied. The basically just said, "Here's what we're waiving, here's what we're denying." Which makes it look like some waivers have become truly routine, which is good. On the down side, t provides no precedent for later appellants, but there is enough precedent out there for this kind of waiver.
Of the 53 appeals decided, the oldest was from June, a mere 7 months ago. Most of the appeals were from October or later. If they're not careful, the FCC is going to start complying with the requirement that all appeals be decided within 90 days (see 47 C.F.R. 54.724)

So I hope that the WCB has a wonderful weekend, because they've earned it.

Over-extended

2012-01-06T16:09:00.001-05:00

Today's interesting factoids from our database guy:
Currently, there are roughly 16,800 FRNs extended for 2010-2011. Out of a total of 134,000 FRNs total in 2010-2011, of which 118,000 are funded. So over 14% of funded FRNs are extended at the moment.

Does that seem like a system that's working?

Holiday cheer, but not where you expect it

2011-12-26T09:07:00.001-05:00

Here is the FCC's Christmas gift this year: an appeal decision granting waivers to applicants with no contracts. It appears that the requirement to have a contract before filing the 471 is actually more like a requirement that you have something like a contract close to the time of filing the 471.

But instead of just celebrating this cheery decision, I'm going to whine. After all, that is what readers have come to expect.

First of all, I will reiterate that the FCC's requirement that school districts and public libraries sign contracts in March for services that start in July and end the following June is illegal. When I called an individual who helped write the public purchasing law in NJ, and explained the E-Rate contracting requirement to him, his response was, "But that's illegal!" Since budgets for the following fiscal year aren't approved, it is illegal to sign contracts for that fiscal year.

Second of all, the FCC waived the rules for 40 appellants, and granted 7 appeals on their merits, without telling us which appeals fall into which category. OK, so it makes no real difference to the applicants, and there are probably only 2 or 3 people in the world who would actually take the time to go back and look at the appeals that were granted, but consarn it, I am one of those people. I want to know the 7 appeals where the FCC thought USAC had it wrong, so that I can learn more about the FCC's thinking, and use this decision as a precedent in future appeals to the FCC and USAC.

But here's the record-scratch moment from this decision: "In addition, we grant...petitioners waivers of our filing deadline for appeals because we find...the late-filed appeal would never have been necessary absent an error on the part of USAC." Wait, did the FCC just say that in cases where USAC makes a mistake, the filing deadline will be waived?! Let's check that footnote: "Based on the record, USAC erred in its decision to deny funding for these petitioners for not having a signed contract in place when the Form 471 was submitted. If USAC had not erred, the petitioners would not have had to file an appeal."

So there's no statue of limitations on USAC error? Even I can't find anything to complain about with that policy. It seems only fair that if applicants can lose funding for mistakes made up to 5 years ago, we should be able to appeal mistakes made for at least 5 years.

Bah! Humbug!

2011-12-23T16:28:00.003-05:00

Call me Ebenezer. So close to Christmas, I'm going on another rant. And on a topic I've ranted to death, no less. So if you don't want me to chip away at your holiday mood, maybe you should skip this one.

I'm going back to competitive bidding. Something I said in my last post on the subject has got me thinking.

[Finding new ideas in my own writing would seem to indicate at least one of the following:

My ability to form complete thoughts leaves something to be desired.
I spend too much time reveling in my own prose.
I'm tossing crap onto this blog before I've thought it through.
My mind moves so fast, even my own mind can't keep up.
My writing is incredibly thought-provoking.]

Anyway, the statement that got me thinking was, "the main goal of most competitive bidding rules is to prevent cheating, not lower costs." Let's face it, the FCC rules are not going to prevent cheating for two reasons:

They can't catch cheaters.
They can't punish cheaters.

The FCC can't catch cheaters because they have no subpoena power and very limited audit resources. Look at all the major cheaters that have been caught. They've either been caught by district attorneys or school district audits or both. With its limited investigatory ability, the FCC is only going to catch people who make stupid mistakes. And competitive bidding rules don't prevent stupid mistakes. (Improving the tools available to applicants would prevent stupid mistakes, but that's a different rant.)

So when cheaters do get caught, what is the punishment? Well, the district attorneys dish out huge fines and jail time. The FCC does 2 things:

Debar individuals for 3 years.
Take back the funding from the applicant.

I've posted before about the irony of giving a 3-year debarment to someone going to jail for 5 years. I mean, you could file an appeal with the FCC, get debarred, and be back in the E-Rate business before the appeal was decided. (Actually, the FCC has handed out at least one 10-year debarment, but the only effective debarments would be against service providers, and there the FCC seems to hand out 6-month debarments, if there is any debarment at all.) So you catch someone cheating and the punishment is that they can't cheat any more for 3 years?

And taking money back from the applicant doesn't hurt the perpetrators. If the cheaters gave a fig about their employers' well-being, they wouldn't cheat. (My favorite case is one where a district alerted the FCC to a $5 million fraud by their Tech Director, and now the FCC is after the district for $3 million, even though the district never got any money or equipment.)

Where's the harm? Well, the restrictions imposed by competitive bidding rules increase the cost of procurement. Apart from the wasted staff time, the decreased flexibility often prevents applicants from purchasing what would be a more cost-effective solution.

The FCC's toothless competitive bidding rules drive up costs without preventing cheating.

How can we deter cheaters? In all the cases mentioned, existing laws resulted in prison time. So let the legal system catch the cheaters.

So for Xmas this year, I'd like Santa to take the Form 470 back to the North Pole with him. Then he can stick one in the stockings of bad children.

Who's missing the gravy train?

2011-12-21T09:45:00.000-05:00

Funds for Learning has posted a short report on the 2009 funding year. So I thought I'd steal a little of their data, and see what the participation rate is among different categories of applicants.

I got my info on the number of libraries from the American Library Association, and on the number of schools and districts from the U.S. Dept. of Education. Here are the results:

Category	Total	Applied	Participation
School Districts	13,809	12,833	93%
Schools	33,740	7,142	21%
Libraries	9,225	3,672	40%
Consortia	n/a	439	n/a

I'm kind of suspicious of the data, because I think the FFL data is pulled from the selection the applicant makes on the Form 471, and so a school with multiple locations might apply as a district. Elsewhere, the DoE put the total number of districts in the country at 16,850. In the other direction, I have seen single-school districts apply as a school. Also, consortia contain applicants from the other 3 categories, so participation is higher for all categories. But let's just take the numbers as roughly correct.

93% is much higher than I expected. I would have guessed 80%. I mean, anything that's voluntary, it's hard to get more than 80% participation. And I see a lot of districts not applying, but I guess that's because I'm looking for those districts. It we use the DoE's other total number of districts (16,850), the participation drops to 76%, which I find more believable. Still, that's a good participation rate.

The libraries number is also higher than I expected. Between the need for a tech plan, the thorny first-amendment infringement inherent in CIPA, and the small telecom/Internet spending for most libraries, I had expected to see a number closer to 20%.

The schools participation is kind of embarassing. Only 1 in 5 apply, which is lower than I had expected. And since most of them have some kind of filtering in place, it's really just a matter of tossing together a tech plan and filling out the paperwork. Now with no tech plan required for Priority One, perhaps we'll see a boom in requests from this sector.

In general, I wonder if we'll be able to see a change in participation now that the tech plan requirement has been relaxed.

If I were more ambitious, I'd look at the percentage of entities in each category get Priority Two funding. I'll bet school participation would drop into the single digits.

E-Rate gets dynamic

2011-12-16T16:31:00.000-05:00

I just learned that General Dynamics purchased Vangent. If you know what that has to do with the E-Rate, then you are way too far down the rabbit hole, and you need an E-Rate intervention.

If you've been reading this blog since 2007, you may remember that Vangent purchased Pearson's government services division, and with it the contract to run the Lawrence, KS contact center. So if you have had the misfortune of mailing any forms, or have had to contact the Client Service Bureau, you have had contact with a Vangent employee. From now on, it will be a General Dynamics employee.

Just for kicks, I checked to see if General Dynamics is a service provider. The answer seems to be no, although a couple of divisions have SPINs, and one of them was approved for funding in 1999, but no funding was disbursed. I guess schools and libraries don't have much use for advanced weapon systems.

Does this mean PIA gets to use F-16s now?

Pointless criteria

2011-12-12T12:08:00.000-05:00

So I was looking at the eligibility of dormitories for E-Rate support, and I noticed something about the conditions for eligibility of dorms as laid out in the Sixth Report & Order: most of the criteria are irrelevant. The Order says that dormitories are eligible for:

schools on Tribal lands
schools designed to serve students with medical needs
schools designed to serve students with physical, cognitive or behavioral disabilities
schools where 35 percent or more of their students are eligible for the national school lunch program
juvenile justice facilities

But the Order implies that dormitories are non-instructional facilities (NIFs), and earlier FCC decisions denying funding to dorms were all for internal connections, so dormitories have always been eligible for Priority One service. The only time a dormitory needs to satisfy one of the criteria above is when applying for Priority Two services. So criterion #4 makes the others pretty much irrelevant. Schools with less than 35% NSLP students have at best a 60% discount, which means they aren't getting Priority Two funding, anyway. (Unless we get another capricious rollover decision.) And in the real world, most schools which meet any of the other 4 criteria will also meet criteria #4.

FCC wrongs states' rights

2011-12-09T14:15:00.001-05:00

The FCC is on a competitive bidding tear. After Monday's decision on 11 appeals, which I disliked, the Commission fired off two more unpleasant decisions on Wednesday. Both decisions look reasonable for the individual cases, but are trouble for the big picture.

First, the FCC granted an appeal where the applicant put a service provider's name in the Form 470. The good news: "We instruct USAC, if otherwise appropriate, to approve all currently pending applications and appeals in which an applicant failed to state “or equivalent” when listing a specific manufacturer’s name, brand, product or service on the FCC Form 470s." A massive mulligan for all earlier errors. The bad news: "for Form 470s or RFPs posted for Funding Year 2013 or thereafter, applicants must not include the manufacturer’s name or brand on their FCC Form 470 or in their RFPs unless they also use the words 'or equivalent' to describe the requested product or service." Oh, dear.

It just bothers me when the FCC mandates poor engineering. No competent network engineer builds a network with a mishmash of manufacturers. Training staff to support multiple manufacturers and trying to make the equipment interact correctly just isn't cost-effective. I think the lawyers at the FCC should go down to the FCC's IT shop and ask the network engineers about mixing manufacturers. Don't get me started on the interoperability of PBXes from different manufacturers.

And since it has been common practice for applicants to put make and/or model on 470s (I picked 5 manufacturers and found 2,710 mentions in the 470s for FY2010), we have another situation where hundreds of applicants will be denied for doing the same thing they've been doing for years.

But it gets worse. How are service providers going to bid on maintenance? Applicants are no longer allowed to tell bidders the make or model of equipment they want supported. The Commission has just ensured that only the incumbent service provider will be able to bid.

Second, the FCC denied an appeal where they didn't think price was the primary factor in vendor selection. I couldn't understand the FCC's explanation of the applicant's explanation of the weighting scheme, so I can't complain about that. And I have no problem with price being the primary factor. What smacked me in the face were three statements explaining why competitive bidding was so important. I've probably read them before in other decisions, but today they jumped out today.

"[C]ompetitive bidding is the most efficient means for ensuring that eligible schools and libraries are informed about all of the choices available to them."
"Competitive bidding also helps to achieve the Commission’s goals of full and open competition resulting in the most cost-effective use of limited program funds."
"Absent competitive bidding, prices charged to schools and libraries for eligible products and services may be needlessly high."

I disagree:

The 470 process prevents applicants from getting informed of what choices are available. Because in order to post a 470, you often have to choose what you want to ask for. For example, you can't ask for concurrent-call pricing on VoIP if you don't know that exists, so you end up asking for VoIP for 150 phone sets, which costs $4,500/month, when all you really need is 20 concurrent call paths, which costs $1,200/month. Because the FCC restricts what information service providers can give applicants before the 470 is posted, 470s are necessarily ill-informed. And getting back to the issue of this appeal, making price the primary factor does not make anyone better informed about available choices.
The 470 process drives up prices by forcing applicants to lock in service provider, model and price a full 18 months before they plan to purchase equipment (and 6 months before they plan to purchase services). So when it comes time for equipment installation, applicants routinely have to change almost every item on the equipment list, but since they are locked into a single service provider, the service provider can name any price it wants for the updated equipment.
OK, that statement is true, but so is this one: "Because of competitive bidding, prices charged to schools and libraries for eligible products and services may be needlessly high." Sometimes competitive bidding lowers prices. Sometimes the FCC's competitive bidding rules, when laid on top of state purchasing law, raise costs. The implication of the sentence is that competitive bidding prevents needlessly high costs, and that's not usually true. I can't say whether the process more often results in higher prices for all applicants, but it's certainly true in purchases I'm involved in. Because I know how to get vendors to lower their prices, through competition, negotiation, etc. And the 470 process prevents me from doing so.

My gripe comes down to semantics. "Competition" does all the things the FCC mentioned in the 3 sentences. "Competitive bidding" is much less effective; the bid process restricts applicant flexibility, and the main goal of most competitive bidding rules is to prevent cheating, not lower costs. "The FCC's competitive bidding rules" are fantastically ineffective, because they are overlaid over state rules, prevent communication between the parties, and create a perverse timing.

The deeper the FCC dives into competitive bidding rules, the more I'm convinced that they need to get out of the business of regulating competitive bidding. It is a role more properly left to state and local governments.

RFPs on Qo'noS

2011-12-06T14:11:00.001-05:00

The latest appeal decision from the FCC further clarifies what "open and fair competition" means, and . The FCC granted 5 appeals, and upheld 6 denials, confirming that when it comes to competitive bidding, the FCC is more stingy with waivers than it is with other violations.

The most interesting case was Klamath-Trinity, and not just because it sounds like a Klingon Catholic school. The FCC said that the competition wasn't fair because:

Klamath-Trinity's RFP contained 8 pages of network diagrams, etc.,
The Form 470 didn't say that an RFP was available.
The 470 was general. (I checked the 470 in question, and the description was pretty brief: "Connecting 7 Schools with 123 rooms with approximately 435computers.")
"Klamath-Trinity said it only provided the RFP to parties that requested it."

That fourth point is troubling. I mean, to whom should the Klingons for Christ have sent the RFP? But later in the decision, Hesperia Unified (which sounds like a benevolent coalition of planets in an Asimov novel) gets a waiver, because it provided copies of the RFP to all bidders. The implications seems to be that the Klingons didn't send out the RFP unless a potential bidder specifically said, "Show me the RFP." I doubt that's how the Klingons behaved, but that seems to be the FCC line of reasoning.

Alas, this decision doesn't get down to specifics. It leaves two vital questions unanswered:

How much information can applicants give out in response to service provider questions?
What does "RFP" mean?

The FCC said that 2 of the applicants (whose names are not SciFi-ish, so I won't mention them) didn't violate bidding rules, because they "merely provided guidance directing potential bidders to already-filed FCC Forms 470." Hesperia did violate rules by giving all bidders info that was not on the 470 (but got a waiver). Apparently, any information given to service providers which goes beyond what is on the 470 constitutes an RFP.

Since this decision also reinforces the requirement that both the 470 and the "RFP" (whatever that is) be available to bidders for 28 days before the contract is signed, and this decision seems to be saying that responses to vendor questions can be considered an RFP, applicants would be wise not to answer any questions from bidders. Because if you answer a question, you have to restart the 28-day waiting period.

So a fair and open bidding process is one in which applicants do not answer questions from potential bidders.

Things are even uglier when we bring in state rules. If I check the "I have an RFP" box, but whatever info I give vendors doesn't meet the state requirements for an RFP, the losers can get the bid thrown out under state law. It seems to me that the FCC has left applicants with two choices: either refuse to give bidders any information beyond what is on the 470, or publish an RFP which complies with state laws, which forces applicants into a very delicate dance of satisfying both state and FCC requirements for competitive bidding.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: E-Rate forms should not use the term RFP. Even better, the FCC should stop regulating the procurement process of schools and libraries and leave it to the states.

Show us the money!

2011-11-19T16:24:00.001-05:00

I'm hearing John Lennon singing, "Imagine all the applicants getting Priority Two." But while the rest of us are dreaming, John Harrington over at Funds for Learning has come up with a plan. He noticed that the new Connect American Fund has $4.5 billion available annually, and has asked the FCC to use some of that funding to make up on the funding shortage that the E-Rate faces every year.

And you can help. You can sign this online petition (WARNING: when you open this page, music plays, so mute your speakers first). Let's deluge the FCC with our support for more E-Rate funding.

Global warming and the FCC's IT infrastructure

2011-10-31T13:13:00.000-04:00

Faithful readers know that I fear that hraunfoss, the FCC server named for an Icelandic waterfall, is slowly drying up. Well, just today I noticed an example of a server that has all but dried up.

If PIA thinks you don't have an FCC RN, they direct you to svartifoss2.fcc.gov, which used to host the FCC's CORES registration system. Svartifoss2 apparently still exists, but seems to exist only to forward requests to the appropriate server.

It seems that hraunfoss has avoided a similar fate for now, but it makes me worry. With the melting of the glaciers in Iceland, the actual waterfalls are endangered, and it would be nice to think that the FCC could at least carry on the names.

Today's oxymoron

2011-10-29T23:38:00.000-04:00

Driving by our local theater, I saw this movie on the marquis:
http://www.sweetpiamovie.com

The Dating Game

2011-10-26T15:23:00.002-04:00

Funds for Learning has made the suggestion that the dates of the window should be fixed. I agree completely.

I'm at a conference today, and the number one question I'm getting from people walking by is, "When will we be filing this year?" The answer is "I don't know." OK, so I can tell them that it looks like we'll have a window very similar to last year, and the USAC Board confirmed that timing this week, but we still don't know the actual dates.

Imagine if the IRS waited until January each year to announce when your taxes would be due.

At least it's much better than in the past, when the window would open a few days after the Eligible Services List was released.

Now, I would like to see the window close much later than it is now, but I would settle for at least have a set date. Imagine how nice it would be to know that 471s were due on March 25th each year.

Now if we could just figure out a way to make the window close on June 30th....

2011-10-14T13:30:00.000-04:00

Can you hear my teeth grinding? Once again, USAC's New Brief is trying to explain "entities." As I've said in the past, the word "entity" should be scrubbed out of every corner of this program. Because "entity" and "billed entity" mean two different things, and the distinction is not consistently observed.

Want to find the entity number for a particular school in your district? Use the Billed Entity Number Search tool, even though you're not looking for a billed entity.

As in the past, the News Brief says you can put an "entity number" in Block 1, when in fact, you should only put a Billed Entity Number in Block 1. The confusion goes on.

We should be talking about "organizations" and "locations," not "billed entities" and "entities."

Or maybe my aversion to the word "entity" is left over from this movie.

The starting pistol is loaded

2011-09-28T20:42:00.001-04:00

The ESL for 2012 has been released! Long live the ESL! I haven't read the whole list yet, but the FCC says they mostly adopted the draft ESL, and I already commented on the draft.

The FCC also authorized USAC to open the filing window no earlier than November 28th. First, kudos to the FCC for obeying their own 60-days-between-approval-of-ESL-and-opening-of-window rule. Two years in a row! But more importantly, it's time for the annual window pool. When will it open? When will it close?

My bets:
Open: January 2nd
Close: March 22nd

Lots more ministers and clerics

2011-09-21T17:28:00.001-04:00

OK, so I bemoaned the fact that the E-Rate Correction Order is being used to tighten what kind of errors can be corrected after a form is filed. In their recent "News for the Week," E-Rate Central pointed out that the E-Rate Correction Deadline Order actually says that more ministerial and clerical errors are listed in the Ann Arbor Order. That order lists the following ministerial and clerical errors:

failing to timely notify USAC to correct a USAC clerical error,
entering on their FCC Form 471 the wrong

FCC Form 470 number,
billed entity number
billed entity number/worksheet number

entering the wrong name or service provider identification number (SPIN)
entering the wrong expiration date for a contract
erroneously characterizing the purchase and installation of equipment as a recurring service
making a calculation error
entering the monthly charge as the annual charge
entering the discounted annual price rather than the pre-discount annual price
entering the amount that a service provider was mistakenly temporarily charging rather than the contracted monthly rate
miscalculating its discount rate
failing to separately list a building where equipment was to be located
failing to enter a request for telecommunications service that was clearly indicated on its item 21 attachment
basing its block 5 funding requests on the wrong FCC Form 471 block 4 worksheet
selecting the wrong term or service
selecting the wrong category of service in its FCC Form 471
making a typographical error in recording the cost of ineligible equipment in response to a USAC request for additional data
failing to follow the correct procedure for modifying its FCC Form471
mistakenly providing the wrong documentation concerning a purchase
describing the service it purchased as for its entire district when it was only intended to serve a single elementary school
omitting a service from a service substitution request
entering the wrong application number on the certifications it submitted
failing to press the submit button to submit its otherwise completed application

Now if we could somehow get PIA to accept all of the above as minesterial and clerical without having to provide explanations....

Not the worst name

2011-09-14T09:42:00.000-04:00

I was just skimming another Ex Parte to the FCC, and it struck me: part of the Universal Service Fund is something that is called the "High Cost Program." In the past, I have always taken it as intended: a program to subsidize telecommunications in places where the cost of providing telecom services is high, ergo the High Cost Program. But today it occurred to me what that name looks like to someone who doesn't know the USF.

If I were looking to get rid of expensive government programs, the "High Cost Program" seems like a really good place to start.

So while I often complain about the name "E-Rate" and its controversial spelling, things could be worse.

Appeal of the day

2011-08-31T13:47:00.002-04:00

My favorite FCC appeal today would be very interesting, in that it challenges the authority of auditors to examine compliance with state and local procurement laws, but the audits are just a bad memory now, so it will only set a precedent for past cases.

It's my favorite because it actually mentions Kafka by name. Audits and cost-effectiveness reviews often make me think of Kafka , so it's nice to see someone finally mention it in an appeal.

I did a little research, and while I couldn't find any previous mention of Kafka in the E-Rate proceeding, I did find a comment in another proceeding before the FCC which actually quotes from The Trial, complete with citation telling you in which paragraphs you can find the quote. Bonus style points!

I've been rolled over

2011-08-27T11:01:00.002-04:00

I feel like a curmudgeon. The FCC has declared that all Priority Two funding requests for 2010-2011 will be funded. Everyone is celebrating. I’m grumbling.

My first complaint: the FCC’s own rules say that the rollover should take place in the second quarter of each year. We’re past the middle of the third quarter. A couple of months delay doesn’t really bother me, but it’s allowed the FCC to snag funds from USAC’s August 2nd projections, which basically means taking something like $250 million from next year’s rollover and putting it into this year’s.

What’s really got my goat is the rollover of funds into a funding year that is already over. I’ve already said that rolling funds into the current year (in this case, FY2011) doesn’t allow applicants to plan properly; funds should be rolled into the next funding year (FY2012). But to roll them into FY2010 two months after the end of the funding year is just terrible.

Look at the experience of a 79% applicant. In January they got their denial for FY2010, so now they have to scale back their project, or drop it all together, or scramble to post a Form 470 for FY2011, if state rules will allow such last-minute bidding. Then two months after the funding year is over, they find out that they are going to get funded. Well, maybe they’re going to get funded; they haven’t been through PIA yet. I’m guessing PIA will put pending FY2011 applications on the back burner, but there is often a lot of back-and-forth about Priority Two requests, so I’m guessing it will be the end of September before most of the FRNs are approved. Now most Priority Two projects work on a SPI basis, so the service provider won’t want to lift a finger until the 486 is approved, so now we’re looking at October. But for a disruptive project, it will have to wait until Summer 2012, or maybe until Winter Break if it’s not too big a project.

Is it any wonder applicants feel whip-sawed by this program? Even when your funding is approved, it feels like you’re being punished. Back in December 2009, you had the foresight to apply for funding for a project starting in July 2011. Others said you were foolish to lock into a contract 18 months before the start of the project, but you had faith. Then you get denied for funding, and then that gets reversed 21 months after you started the project, so you’re going to have to wait until next Summer and start the project 31 months after you bid it out. You’ll certainly have to change every part in the project, and the way integrators are going belly up, maybe have to change service providers, too. But you can’t rebid the project, so how are you going to comply with state law when you’re buying completely different equipment from your original RFP, maybe from a different vendor?

And it just seems fantastically unfair that without warning, 40% applicants are going to get Priority Two funding this year. Since the Form 470 process increases costs and reduces functionality on projects, I have advised clients at the 40% level not to apply for E-Rate funding. Why is it that the FCC could so easily fund all applications below 80%? Because 80% is like an electric dog fence: for years, anyone who applied for Priority Two funding with less than an 80% discount had an unpleasant experience. Now the FCC doesn’t have to turn on the dog fence; applicants have learned to stay in the yard.

So maybe you could discount all the above as sour grapes. If I’d been that stubborn dog who kept throwing himself painfully into the electric fence, I’d have that Priority Two squirrel in my mouth right now. I didn’t, and now I’m grumbling. But here’s a complaint that has nothing to do with the fence: the E-Rate program is running out of money. There will be enough money to cover Priority One for a lot of years, but the ability to cover Priority Two requests from 90% applicants is likely to run out in a few years. So this rollover seems to me like the Social Security Administration saying, “Hey, we have a lot of money right now, so let’s make a rule that anyone who’s over 50 and unemployed at the moment gets to go on Social Security starting right now.” Yes, it would be wonderful for 53-year-olds who can’t find a job and could live on Social Security. But it would be fantastically irresponsible, since we know the program will run out of money down the road.

So why did the FCC do this? The three reasons I can think of:

“Hey, we got some money lying around, let’s throw it at those people. It’ll be like one of those hilarious slapstick scenes where someone begs and begs for a pie, and then they get it thrown in their face.” Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system.
It’s good PR for the program to be able to say that FY2011 was fully funded.
It will cause an increase in Priority Two applications, as 40% applicants start to think, “Hey, you never know.” The increase in funding demand will show how desperately needed the program is, and keep the anti-E-Rate wolves at bay.

What should the FCC have done?

Fund FY2010 requests at 81% and above.
Roll enough into FY2011 to fund requests at 83% and above.
Take the rest of the money and roll it into FY2012.
Start setting the denial threshold at the start of the filing window.

Esta fuente no se SECA

2011-08-19T15:05:00.002-04:00

SECA is at it again. They've sent the FCC another batch of good ideas. Here's a list. Of course I'm going to editorialize.

Direct reimbursement to applicants: Hell, yeah! But SECA neglects to mention the real reason that this hasn't happened yet: Currently, USAC sends electronic payments to hundreds of service providers, but if they reimburse applicants directly, suddenly they'll be printing and mailing checks to thousands of applicants. At the beginning of November, they'd need one big honking printer. And I shudder to think what address they'd send the checks to. Look for hundreds of missing checks each year.
Automatic Deadline Extensions for $0-Funded Invoices: OK, that would be nice.
Problem Resolution Outreach to Correct BEAR Error: Yup. I get that USAC wants to process all invoices within 30 days, but surely they could ask for a little info before pushing the "pass zero" button. And applicants weren't clamoring for quicker payment on BEARs; service providers were clamoring for quicker payment on SPIs. So do problem resolution on BEARs, not SPIs.
Enhance online BEAR: Yes to all those changes, especially the ability to go back and alter a BEAR after submitting but before service provider certification. I can't tell you the number of times that the service provider has a different total than I do, and I have to redo the BEAR over a few cents.
Applicants should be told when the invoicing deadline has passed and be given a second chance to invoice: Now that is a good suggestion that I had not heard before. It would be consistent with what USAC does for 471s and 486s.
Top discount percentage should be 75%: Yes! Yes! Yes! I've always thought that the 90% discount was too high for Priority Two. Now I'm starting to think it's too high for Priority One.
An applicant portal, creating "a virtually paperless E-rate application process": Oh, yeah. If they could really normalize the database, where you could put services on the 470, then when you make the Item 21 Attachment, you get to choose from things you put on the 470, then Block 5 of the 471 is filled in based on the Item 21 Attachment, and on the BEAR you can associate charges with items in the Item 21 Attachment. Something needs to be done about the creaky USAC codebase. I enjoy the quirks in the current system more than most people, but I'd trade it for some more reliability.
Comprehensive Requirements Manual: Oh, yes. Way back at my first Train-the-Trainer (in 2001, I think), they asked for suggestions for improving the program, and this was at the top of my list. Aside from the obvious benefit of making it easier for applicants to access program rules, the creation of a rulebook would: 1) show just how massive and complex the rules are for this program; and 2) show how quickly the rules shift in this program. It would be a powerful impetus to simplify the rules and to change them only quarterly, instead of the current practice of making changes whenever we feel like it.
Remove Funding Year from the Form 470: I've already said that this should be done.
On 470, remove distinction between Telecom Services and Internet Access, and between Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance: No, unless the distinction also disappears from the Eligible Services List. Having 4 categories in 2 priorities seems to add complexity, but really it just reveals the complexity that is there. I'm all for having the ridiculous complexity of this program in everybody's face. Because when you try to hide the complexity, the applicants suffer.

I've always thought SECA was a little snooty, sitting off by themselves at the DC training every year, but now I think they're heroes. A couple more of these salvos of common sense, and I'll have to start a fan club.

CIPA changes coming in July

2011-08-16T10:09:00.002-04:00

And the wheels of progress grind on. Back in October 2008, Congress passed a change to the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). In November 2009, the FCC released an NPRM to put the law into force. And last week, we finally got the new rules.

The bottom line: By July 2012, for all schools applying for Internet Access, Internal Connections or Basic Maintenance, the "Internet safety policy must provide for the education of minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response."

Libraries are exempt from the training requirement. I guess that since the form doesn't actually list the requirements, they won't need to create a forked certification.

The good news is that the FCC gave everyone plenty of time to update their policies. Now the question is, will schools get the message? And will those schools that don't find out about the new rules get waivers? Applicants who are new to the E-Rate process get a one-year grace period, but schools who have applied under the old rules must comply by July 2012.

Then paragraph 9 sent a chill down my spine: "We also revise certain rules to conform more accurately to the existing statutory language, as proposed in the NPRM. We emphasize that these revisions do not impose additional obligations on E-rate participants, but merely mirror the existing statutory language and codify existing statutory requirements. Many of our modifications will simplify the application process...." Dang, there are 16 paragraphs left. 16 paragraphs of minor clarifications? Minor clarifications have had a tendency to be major retroactive rule changes. I expected a bumpy ride.

But these really do seem to be both minor and clarifications. Whew! Paragraphs 14-17 are especially nice, as they let applicants decide when and how to disable filters, and what content is inappropriate.

Paragraph 23 is a disappointment. There has been quite a bit of confusion about how CIPA requirements apply to staff smartphones. Since they can browse the Internet, shouldn't they be filtered? And with the piloting of remote Internet access for students (Learning on the Go, nee Education Deployed Ubiquitously), it becomes a real issue. The FCC response? "That's a good question. Maybe we'll think about that." But better no response than a bad response, I guess.

Before it was the SLD

2011-08-10T08:08:00.003-04:00

How did I miss this movie for all these years? It came out in 1998; coincidence? I don't think so. I mean, look at this picture. In the middle, I think that's what the Senior Manager for Customer Service looked like without the moustache. And apparently in 1998, the guy running invoicing sported a mohawk. And yup, that's the head of PIA on the left, with a look that says, "Ugh! This app is nowhere close to meeting the Minimum Processing Standards. Get it out of my sight!"

Being the responsible consultant that I am, I have added the movie to my Netflix queue. Hey, I'll probably learn more about the E-Rate from watching that movie than reading all the guidance on the new gifting rules.

Ministers and clerics of the world, unite!

2011-08-09T14:02:00.002-04:00

Well, the Erate [sic] Correction Deadline Order has had the effect I feared: PIA is now investigating whether errors are truly "ministerial" or "clerical." PIA is asking applicants how errors occurred, including errors that applicants used to be able to correct without delving into the motivation behind the error.

It's got me wondering: How long will it be before we see appeals claiming that errors were ministerial due to temporary insanity?

SECA and Morgan Freeman

2011-08-03T08:20:00.002-04:00

In what I'm calling (with apologies to my high school Latin teachers) a sua sponte a posteriori ex parte tabella maxima, the State E-Rate Coordinators Alliance (SECA) has filed with the FCC a request to fix the problem of Black Holes and COMADs. Don't know what black holes have to do with the E-Rate? I don't know who coined the term, but among E-Rate cognoscenti, a "Black Hole" application is an application that has been languishing for years, neither approved or denied. A lot of them are tied to investigations of an applicant, service provider or consultant. Or so one can surmise, since no one can get any information about the reason for the Black Hole.

Pointless aside: Of course this filing has me thinking about Star Trek, what with Black Holes and COMADs (which remind me of NOMAD). Which I guess makes the Chair of SECA Captain Kirk. And I know who's Spock. I don't know the rest of the SECA gang well enough to decide who gets to be Bones, Scotty, Sulu, Chekhov, Uhura, etc.

The first thing that struck me was that there were so few Black Hole applications. I mean, every time we get together for an E-mpa meeting, someone has a Black Hole horror story. It looks like only about 150 applications from before 2008 are in a Black Hole. I would have guessed 1,000, based on the number of stories I've heard.

But on to the important part of the document, the proposed solutions. And, of course, my ill-considered opinion of them.

Bill of Rights: Oh, yeah! Any one of the items on the list would vastly improve the program. Every item seems like common sense to anyone who hasn't been involved with the E-Rate, but to those of us in the E-Rate trenches, they're like dreams. Well, except if they actually implemented this bill of rights, E-Rate consultants would be much less necessary, and I still have to get my kids through college.

Increased Transparency: Less revolutionary, but also nice. Basically just giving people a clue on how they got into a Black Hole, and letting the public know how many applications are sitting in a Black Hole.

“Under Review” Decisions: Who knew that USAC could issue an FCDL with some of the FRNs marked "Under Review"? So why don't they? Not that I'm surprised; they are also reluctant to use the "As Yet Unfunded" option for FRNs that are waiting to see if they'll clear the denial threshold. My guess? The metrics on their contract don't count an application as complete until all FRNs are decided, so why bother with a partial decision?

Code 9 Procedures: I'm not so sure about this one. SECA is trying to prevent abuse of the ability to make anonymous accusations. I don't think it's that big a problem. I may be wrong, but I have the impression that while every Code 9 accusation is investigated, applications don't sit in a Black Hole unless there is some evidence of a problem. And I don't like impinging on the ability of people to call in anonymously.

Recovery of Funds Deadline: I like the idea of saying that after 5 years, no funds will be recovered. But I don't like their suggestion of forcing USAC to wrap up audits quickly. Because what USAC is doing is considering whether violations found by auditors merit recovery, and I want them to take their sweet time about it. And really, is recovery 7 years after the fact any worse that 5 years after the fact?

Finality of USAC Funding Commitment Decisions Letters: Hear, hear! Why do FCDLs have to count as funding commitments if the decision is going to be reviewed again at invoicing and maybe again later in an audit? If there was intentional deception, then OK, go get them. But if an applicant was forthright in their application, and USAC mistakenly approved funding improperly, don't punish the applicant. Plus, I love the word estoppel. (But if they start estopping things, will a controversy arise of "eStop" vs. "E-Stop"?)

Gradations of Financial COMAD Penalties: Sounds like a good idea, but it's going to add to USAC's workload, and really, isn't an applicant going to appeal any COMAD to the FCC? So let the FCC decide if they want to be in the business of cost-allocating COMADs.

I think I'll have to file an ex post facto ego te amo in support of SECA's Bill of Rights.

Now, hidden forms

2011-08-02T13:25:00.002-04:00

You've heard me bellyache about the secret rules and the hidden rules, but a new appeal has got me bothered about hidden forms.

Seems an applicant got two bids for its WAN, and selected the service provider with the higher bid. That's OK under E-Rate rules, as long as price was the primary factor. And the district says that price was the primary factor, and has supplied some evidence to support that position. But because they could not produce "RFP Response Evaluation Worksheets," they were found to have violated program rules.

So now we have a hidden form. Applicants have to produce a bid evaluation matrix. Nowhere do the rules say you have to make one. Certainly, the USAC Web pages on bid evaluation imply that you should have a written evaluation, but nowhere does it say that one must be created, and nowhere does it say what form it must take.

I've made this point before when talking about tech plans:

If USAC wants applicants to document something in a particular way, they should create a form for it. I hate forms as much as the next person, but they do clearly delineate what information must be recorded. Creating a Form 666 (or whatever) to record bid evaluations wouldn't add new rules or complexity to the process, it would reveal the rules and complexity that already exist, but are obscured by fuzzy language like "construct an evaluation."

I don't mind if USAC and the FCC use vague language to describe vague requirements, but if there is a specific program requirement, it should be described by specific language. Don't say "construct an evaluation" if you mean "build a bid evaluation matrix like the example we've provided, being sure to show the weight given to each criterion."

As it stands now, most applicants don't realize that they have to create written evaluation documents that clearly show that price was the primary factor. Because the rules don't say that they have to create such a document.

Let's bring the ridiculous number of required documents out in the open by making them all forms. If we could stack the vast quantity of rules and piles of required documentation in front of the Commissioners, maybe they would rethink the process that has been created to transfer $3,000 (the median FRN amount) to governmental and non-profit organizations.

Blog Hygiene

2011-07-26T08:23:00.002-04:00

No E-Rate content in this post.

I just wanted to let you know that I've made a housekeeping change in this blog. When I'm reading something on the Web and come to a hyperlink, I almost always want the link to open in a new tab on my browser, so I can keep reading and look at the hyperlink later. And I write my blog assuming that readers are doing the same thing.

So I've finally figured out how to make my blog automatically open a new tab when you click on a link. Don't be alarmed when you click on a link and a new tab opens up. Click here to see how links work now. As an added bonus, when you click you'll get to see the Web site of the greatest E-Rate consulting firm on Earth. (And I don't want to hear any whining from other E-Rate consulting firms that think they're the greatest; my Mom says On-Tech is the best, and you'd better not disagree with my Mom.)

I wish I could make the new tab open behind the current window, to avoid interrupting the flow of my splendid prose, but that is beyond my poor HTML skills.

I've read that people hate sites that pop open new tabs, but that's just too bad. I like it, and since this blog exists to amuse me, new tabs it is.

Is Joe Barton Megamind?

2011-07-22T06:52:00.003-04:00

Just yesterday as I drove along listening to the jibber-jabber about our government hurtling towards default, and what it would mean, I breathed a sigh of relief that the Universal Service Fund is not part of the budget. So I think even a complete government shutdown wouldn't stop the E-Rate. At least not for a while.

I've described before the plot to kill the E-Rate by bringing it into the US budget, then bleeding it dry. That plan died when the Republicans lost control of the government. Well, they're back. At first it looked like they would join the movement to expand the E-Rate, which I'm afraid may be the E-Rate's undoing. But I was feeling quite safe.

Then this morning I read this: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has floated the idea of taking $1 billion from the USF to help pay down the debt. But wait, other Republicans are riding to the USF's defense, led by Rep. Joe Barton. Could you hear my jaw dropping? I've been dissing Joe "Bleed It Dry" Barton ever since he said that he wanted to kill the E-Rate by underfunding it. Now Barton is saying, "...while I think the fund needs to be reduced, I am against using the money collected for anything other than its intended purpose."

It's like the plot of Megamind come to life. Suddenly, the villain is a hero. Well, except for that "the fund needs to be reduced" part.

Equivalent <> identical

2011-07-18T16:24:00.002-04:00

Today's shake of the head goes to Edline's comments on the ESL. Here's what got my head moving:

" Given the finding of functional equivalence in the Sixth Report and Order, e-mail service and web hosting service should not be separated in different sections of the ESL but should, instead, be contained in the same section, in one “function” category. Such a result will, to the greatest extent possible, ensure that disparate treatment of these functionally equivalent services does not occur now, or in the future."

Um, well, what the FCC said in paragraph 101 of the Sixth Report & Order was:

"We recognize that the transfer of messages across a school’s hosted website is functionally equivalent to other services that facilitate the ability to communicate such as e-mail, text messaging, voice mail, and paging."

So if Web hosting should be in the same "function" category as e-mail, shouldn't text messaging, voice mail and paging be lumped in there, too? Oh wait, they're all telecom services. So I guess "functionally equivalent" doesn't mean "functionally identical." And it doesn't mean that they should all be treated identically.

And looking more closely at the FCC's order, it doesn't say that Web hosting is functionally equivalent to e-mail. It says that activity like blogging is functionally equivalent. So only part of Web hosting is functionally equivalent.

I can understand why a Web hosting company would want to get lumped in with e-mail: many in the E-Rate community have come out in favor of dumping Web hosting from eligibility, and lashing themselves to a more popular service like e-mail is a good defense. And Edline was using the functionally equivalent argument to try to further stretch the definition of Web hosting.

FCC rocks

2011-07-12T10:50:00.003-04:00

Man, I love it when lawyers submit appeals to the FCC.

When school and library employees post, they're basically saying, "We're really sorry, but in your great wisdom and mercy, please grant us our humble request. For the children."

But when the lawyers write appeals, they say things like, "An Order not based on substantial evidence and states mere conjecture … without substantial evidence is arbitrary, capricious, not in accordance with law, unwarranted by the facts. an abuse of discretion and is reversible." (Here's the whole appeal.)

I guess they don't teach the "get more flies with honey" philosophy in law school.

And in a nod to Dave Barry, I will note that "Abuse of Discretion" would be a great name for a rock band.

Hidden rule

2011-07-06T10:33:00.004-04:00

So I was reading through the instructions for the Form 471 (looking in vain for definitions of the terms "district" and "consortium") when I came across this nugget:

"In addition, if you are a consortium that includes non-governmental entities ineligible for universal service support, you should note that you cannot negotiate pre-discount prices below tariff rates for interstate services from incumbent local telephone companies."

Huh?

OK, first off, I'm always whining about the secret rules, but this is a prime example of a hidden rule. I mean, you have a rule about when you're allowed to negotiate rates , and the best place to put it is the instructions for the Form 471 in the section on how to fill out Item 5a (where you say if you're a school, library, district or consortium)? Let's assume the ridiculous, and say that applicants could read all the rules. Even so, the Form 471 is completed after rates are negotiated, so it would be reasonable for applicants to read the instructions for that form after rates are negotiated.

Second, the rule is weird. So if my consortium has non-governmental entities eligible for support, or governmental entities not eligible for support, I'm still OK to negotiate a better rate, but if one of the entities is both non-governmental and not eligible for E-Rate, then I have to take the tariff rate? And if I go with a competitive local exchange carrier instead of an incumbent, I can negotiate a lower rate? For a rule to be so odd, there must be some hairy FCC politics behind it.

2011-06-27T08:06:00.003-04:00

The FCC has announced the comment period for the changes to the 2012 ESL (if you don't know that ESL stands for Eligible Services List, count your blessings and skip the rest of this post). The draft ESL is here.

OK, so here are the changes (in bold), and my initial reaction (not bold):

Funds are allocated according to rules of Priority: Yawn
Any telecommunications service is eligible, but all other services are eligible only if specifically listed: The second clause is good, but saying that "any telecommunications service" is going to cause confusion. Because for Joe Lunchbox, anything that appears on a phone bill is a "telecommunications service." Better to say "any service that meets the definition of 'telecommunications service' under 47 CFR blahblahblah."
Services funded under the “Learning on the Go” program satisfy the requirement that services must be used for an “educational purpose.”: Redundant clarification is OK with me, even if it only pertains to 20 out of the thousands of applicants. But I am sad that the "Education Deployed Ubiquitously" name for the program is gone. I loved that name.
Removed rationale for included Interconnected VoIP: Yawn
Moved everything out of "Other Eligible Telecommunications Services" into other areas: Seems fine to me.
Updated entry for dark and lit fiber: The clarification is pretty brief, given all the confusion, but it makes very clear that the E-Rate will pay for the construction of a lit fiber network, but not for the construction of a dark fiber network.
Replaced and updated the description of eligible Internet Access service: Boy, the new definition sure makes Web hosting stick out like a sore thumb. It does help to clarify the "basic conduit" concept. But they really need to clarify what they mean by "billing management, introductory information content, and navigational systems."
Moved "Distance Learning and Video Conferencing" eligibility info: OK, but no matter what the FCC does, some videoconferencing company is going to discover the E-Rate, skim the ESL, and come to the conclusion that their product is eligible, and stir up confusion with their advertising. It happens every year.
Deleted "Internet-based" from the "E-mail Service" description: OK, but I'd like to see a clear statement on whether electronic messaging needs to reach the Internet in order to be eligible. For example, does "e-mail" include closed messaging systems that only allows students to contact teachers?
Satellite Internet service can be eligible: Fine. Most new Internet access contracts I've been seeing are Internet over Ethernet, so why not have that on the list?
Firewall service can only be provided by ISP, and cannot be separately priced: I'd rather have them say that firewall service is not eligible, but can sometimes be included as an Ancillary Use.
Mobile hotspots only eligible if on-campus and not duplicative: Sounds OK to me.
Changed "Other Eligible Internet Access Services" to "Internet-Related Services": I like the new name better.
Lit or dark fiber can be requested as Internet access: I don't understand how lit fiber is not a telecommunications service, but I'm not an FCC lawyer.
Changed the Web hosting description: They just made it eligible for school districts to offer a panoply of services to students and parents: file storage, blogging, webmail, messaging. And the new definition does nothing to dissuade the vendors of Web-enabled applications (like student management or grading) from trying to say that some of their service is eligible.
Revised description of ineligible Web hosting services, moved it to "ineligible" section: Oh wait, here is some more clarification. I sure hope everyone else finds it, now that it's in a separate section. So they took away file storage, but providing webmail for parents is still eligible. And the rules here do make it more difficult for Web-enabled application vendors to shoehorn their products into Web hosting.
Password-protected pages for staff not eligible: OK, but it says that such password protection is ineligible if they give staff access "access ineligible tools." That implies two things: 1) pages that are only available to staff are eligible if they access eligible tools, and 2) password-protected pages that give access to ineligible tools are still eligible if they are available to students or parents.
Firewall components are eligible in "Data Protection" and "Servers": In my book, a firewall is not a server, but it doesn't matter.
Clarified which software is not eligible: Fine.
Moved info on ineligibility of antennas: OK, but I like the idea of keeping the info on ineligibility next to the info on eligibility, rather than putting them on different pages.
Restrictions on remote access: Inconsequential.
Smartphones and tablets not eligible: Good.
BMIC can be cost-allocated, and on-site service is eligible only if cost-effective: The change is fine, but the original language is a problem: when the FCC says "on-site service," they mean "paying for service provider staff to be on the client premises full time." Whereas the rest of the world thinks that "on-site services" means service that takes place on site, like a switch breaks and you call someone to come out and fix it, which the FCC calls "off-site." So in FCCspeak, "off-site service" is generally performed on site. I think the ESL should talk about "duty station" instead of "on-site"/"off-site."
BMIC reimbursed based on actual work performed: BMIC takes the crown for Most Unclear Eligibility, which is saying something, given how murky the eligibility is for Web hosting and dark fiber. The ESL is not better than the Sixth Report & Order and the subsequent clarifying orders and FAQs. It says you can only be reimbursed for actual work performed, but in fact you can get funding for CiscoBase, which is paid for whether work is done or not.
"clarified the entry for the Miscellaneous category that 'Miscellaneous' services and products related to services requested in the Telecommunications category should be requested (via FCC Form 471) in the Telecommunications Services or Internet Access category, depending upon the nature of the service provider": And there is my laugh for the day. Because I'm an E-Rate expert, and I have not idea what that clarification means. OK, looking at the draft ESL, I see what they're trying to say. "Nature of the service provider" really means "whether the Service Provider files a Form 499." I know some applicants will not know what a Form 499, but let's be honest that if they don't know whether their service provider is filing that form, they can't know the right way to apply. Let's not try to make the rules appear simpler than they actually are. (Instead, make the rules simpler. Why is there still a separate Internet Access category?)
Contingency fees will be reimbursed based on actual work performed: I don't understand how this will work. Does this mean that contingency fees will be approved for funding, and then applicants will have to do a service substitution to convert the contingency into an actual service? I'm thinking all my projects are going to have contingency fees from now on, so we can cover unforeseen expenses.
Dark fiber doesn't need a tech plan and is not duplicative if appropriate: Seems to be saying that it is not duplicative to have multiple T-1s and dark fiber linking two sites. I'm not sure that was the intention.
All special eligibility conditions for WANs in one entry: If only it were true. The rules for WANs, like the rules for everything else, are splattered across the ESL, the USAC Web site, FCC orders and USAC PowerPoint slides.
Added definitions for "failover" and "enhanced multimedia interface": Repeating the definition of "failover" in the definitions section is fine. I would have gone the other way and taken the jargon out, but there are reasons to keep it in. Adding a new definition for a technology on its way out, like ATM, seems unnecessary, so I wouldn't have added "enhanced multimedia interface," but it doesn't do any harm.

To Have or Not to Have

2011-06-27T07:18:00.002-04:00

I'm feeling a little dissonance this morning. Back in October, the FCC released the Keyport Order, which said of Keyport's 2004 application:

"the Commission’s rules in effect at the time ... required each entity to maintain, for their purchases of telecommunications and other supported services, 'the kind of procurement records that they maintain for other purchases.' [The applicant], therefore, had no obligation to produce documentation that it would not normally maintain for other purchases."

In last week's Central Islip decision, the FCC said of Central Islip's 2002 application:

"...there is no documentation, i.e., a bid evaluation sheet or bid comparison, showing how the bids were evaluated, scored, or ranked. Thus, we are unable to determine whether Central Islip selected the most cost effective service offering. The absence of this information leads us to conclude that Central Islip failed to demonstrate that its competitive bidding process complied with program rules because it could not show that it conducted a competitive bidding process."

Why the difference? I suppose it could be that the FCC is saying that Central Islip was required by state law to maintain the records, whereas Keyport was not. That might be true, but I'm not so sure. It looks to me like maybe Central Islip bought off state contract, so it wouldn't be required to maintain the records that the FCC wanted to see.

Today's rabbithole? Ontario!

2011-06-23T10:47:00.004-04:00

FY2011 Wave 1 funding approvals are still not available from the Data Retrieval Tool, but service providers have known for days, and now it's available through the Automated Search of Commitments.

Anything interesting? Let's see, it looks like the states getting big reimbursements are the ones you'd expect. OK and MS maybe sticking out above the norm, but not outrageously so. WV and GA lagging, but it's only Wave 1, so nothing to get excited about. And the only states who got skunked aren't really states: American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Ontario Canada [insert sound of record scratching]. Ontario?! What the fund? How did that get on the list? Is this a NAFTA thing?

You didn't think I'd just let that go, did you? I put my crack team on it. Our database guy points out that there is no option for Ontario on the Data Retrieval Tool, so there is no way to use the DRT to check if Ontario got any funding. Our intrepid Customer Service Rep noted that the Billed Entity Search tool has an option for ON, but if you try to search for billed entities in ON, you get a server error. Meanwhile, if you go to the "Advanced Search" in the Automated Search of Commitments, the dropdown menu for state does not include Ontario. Other search tools:

Form 470: State dropdown includes ON

Tech Plan Approver Locator: State dropdown does not include ON

I cannot find any evidence of any funding going to Ontario, but maybe that's just what they want us to think....

Another irony in the fire

2011-06-21T16:38:00.002-04:00

I got a kick out of the FCC's recent appeal decision, where they took 7 years to forgive an applicant for filing an application 8 days late. But they've outdone themselves this time.

In a recent decision, they rejected 3 requests for review because they were filed too late. OK, the first one was filed 2 years late, but the second and third were filed 59 and 58 days after the orders they were appealing.

Wait, 58 days is too late? I had to go back and look this one up. It's true. According to the order that extends the deadline to appeal from 30 days to 60 days (on an emergency interim basis due to the anthrax attacks), petitions for reconsideration still have to be filed within 30 days. Who knew?

So anyway, these applicants file 29 and 28 days late, respectively, and the FCC responds 2,724 and 3,076 days later, respectively. I can't find an adjective to describe that.

Funding year mind games

2011-06-21T15:50:00.004-04:00

Sometimes, I think USAC is messing with me. Well, not USAC exactly. In this case it was Vangent, I think (at least I was give a Vangent e-mail address).

Faithful readers will recall that on Sunday I expressed the opinion that the Form 470 should not be tied to a funding year. Today I get a call asking me which funding year I meant to put on my Form 470.

We put "2012" in Box 2, and they wanted to confirm that we meant 2012-2013.

Hmmm.... Let's think about the current situation. Right now, you can only file a Form 470 for 2011-2012. Even though it's 117 days to late to file a 470 for 2011-2012. Even with the kinder, gentler FCC, it's hard to imagine getting a waiver for a 2011-2012 application that gets started now. The only application that's going to get approved based on a 470 filed now is a 2012-2013 application. But USAC has me blocked.

Mr. Blackwell, take down this wall.

Glass half empty

2011-06-20T15:10:00.002-04:00

Allow me to get grumpy when I should be celebrating.

This afternoon I got the first set of notes from a service provider concerning 2011-2012 funding requests. I should be happy:

This means that the applicants in question will be getting funded in the first wave.
The service provider is really on the ball, which gives me hope that the August bills (and maybe even the July bills) will already show the E-Rate discount.

But I'm grumpy:

The service provider spelled the name of the program "Erate."
Why do service providers find out before applicants?

On spelling:

I feel like I'm fighting a rear-guard action on hyphenation. First, PIA dropped the hyphen, then the FCC dropped it. Suddenly, the controversy over capitalizing the "R" seems insignificant. (What's that I hear you saying, that controversy always was insignificant? Pshaw!) Are we really going to end up with "Erate"? Sorry, but it looks too much like some declension of "erratum," which may be a fitting name for the program, but is hardly flattering.

On informing applicants:

OK, it's only a few days' difference, but every year it sticks in my craw that the entire E-Rate universe knows about funding approvals before the applicant. Service providers know right now what funding's been approved in Wave 1, a week before applicants find out. State E-Rate Coordinators also find out before applicants. It's all public information, so I don't object to the information being available to everyone, but it just seems unfair that applicants are the last to know.

Thinking Outside Box 2

2011-06-19T08:50:00.003-04:00

So I needed to post a Form 470 this week, and a couple of things occurred to me.

First, why does Item 2 (where you fill in the the Funding Year) appear on the Form 470? The 470 is not necessarily tied to a funding year. For multi-year contracts, a Form 470 will be used for several funding years. And for construction projects, it may be necessary to file a Form 470 two years before the funding year. So why tie the Form 470 to a funding year?

While I was thinking about the Form 470's role in the E-Rate process, I realized that it offers a solution to the problems created by the heinous new SPIN change regulations. OK, maybe the Copan Order left things too wide open: applicants could do a SPIN change any time, to any service provider, without giving a reason. The new rules in the Sixth Report & Order remedy abuse that was apparently going on, but throw the baby out with the bathwater: you can't change without good reason, and if you do change, you have to pick whoever was the #2 bidder on the original 470. That means if a new money-saving opportunity comes along, applicants can't take advantage of it for 6-18 months. How about letting applicants switch any time they want, as long as they post a 470? That would stop the kind of abuse that the FCC was trying to stop, while still giving applicants the flexibility to take advantage of more cost-effective solutions that come up in the middle of the funding year.

It would go like this: someone at the school finds out they could save $100/month by switching long distance providers. Under my proposed scheme, the applicant could post a 470, accept bids for 28 days, and then switch providers.

It doesn't solve the problem entirely, since the district personnel who make the decision to change providers are not always aware that saving money by changing service providers is a violation of E-Rate rules, and the people who know the E-Rate rules often don't find out about the switch until it's too late. But at least my mid-year-470 plan would help out applicants who want to save money and are aware of E-Rate rules.

How are the mighty waterfallen

2011-06-08T13:52:00.003-04:00

This is the third, and I hope last, post concerning the FCC approval of the PIA procedures. But this one has nothing to do with the actual approval or any of its perceived grammatical flaws.

It's all about the URL. In past years, the approvals of PIA procedures always appeared on hraunfoss.fcc.gov. This year, it's in a slick new format with the URL "www.fcc.gov/document/...." I like the new format, but it increases my concern that hraunfoss is being phased out. Comfortingly, the links at the top of the announcement (that let you open up Word, PDF and text documents) all point to hraunfoss, but if you click on them, you're redirected to transition.fcc.gov. So for the moment, it seems hraunfoss is gone, but not forgotten.

Stayed tuned for more on this unfolding Icelandic saga.

I've got your 30 days right here

2011-06-08T13:13:00.002-04:00

On the approval of PIA procedures for 2011, the FCC said, "In addition, on a going-forward basis, USAC should provide the Bureau with USAC's proposed PIA procedures 30 days prior to the opening of the filing window, beginning with the procedures for Funding Year 2012."

Sorry but I just have to put on the grammar curmudgeon hat: "on a going-forward basis" sets my teeth on edge. How about just saying "going forward"? Or perhaps the slightly more elegant "in the future"?

They're pushing the due date earlier. In 2009, the FCC said, “we would ask that you provide the Bureau with USAC's proposed PIA procedures at least 30 days prior to the close of the FCC Form 471 application window.”

Imagine a world where the PIA processing procedures are approved before the opening of the window. The first wave of funding could come out during the window! Now that would be an incentive for applicants to get the 471 done early.

A more pessimistic (realistic?) colleague posed the opposite possibility: this could force USAC to open the window later. Mel Blackwell has said he'd like a shorter window. So maybe this will be the impetus to shorten the window to 50 days....

And they're off!

2011-06-07T22:43:00.002-04:00

Hold on to your hats: the FCC has approved the PIA processing standards. USAC has been processing furiously, so there is a big pile of applications just waiting to be approved. Look for a monster first wave just as soon as USAC can warm up the presses to print FCDLs.

Unless.... The FCC mentions "substantive edits" were made. There is a risk that a lot of applications that had made it through PIA will be thrown back into review by those substantive edits.

Of course, we'll never really know: the edits, like the processing rules, are secret.

Trouble in Iceland?

2011-05-22T17:14:00.002-04:00

I was looking at the 3 FCC decisions posted last week, and noticed something disconcerting: the server hosting the decisions is transition.fcc.gov. As I have said before, I have an attachment to hraunfoss (and to a lesser extent fjallfoss), so I'm worried that some new URL is going to pop up. As long as they keep the old URLs working, I won't blow a gasket, but if I have to go back and change every link on this blog to an FCC decision, expect harsh words.

Two of the decisions are worth noting, because they're denials. Gone are the heady days after Bishop Perry, when you could get an appeal granted with no justification. And both involved districts complying with state law, but not FCC rules.

Gila Bend is kind of a records-keeping thing: the district could not provide any documentation concerning bids received in response to the Form 470. Moral of the story: if you don't get any bids, make up a memo to the file that says so, and drop it in the file. No matter what, you need to generate some piece of paper that says how you picked your service provider. And then save it for 7 years or so.

Cascade seems like an applicant that didn't know how to put its decisions in the right light. The district admitted several errors:

Cascade started getting service before the 470 was posted.
Cascade put down its own 470, not the 470 under which the state contract was awarded. (And later gave the wrong 470 for the state contract.)
Cascade said it was a month-to-month service, instead of putting the state master contract on the 471.

Let's deal with #3 first, since it is actually the linchpin of the line of argument I think Cascade should have taken. I don't know the situation in Idaho, but in most states, districts can jump on and off the state master contract at any time. So while an underlying contract exists, I would argue that from the district perspective, it is a month-to-month service. If it is a contract, well, I'd say that's a harmless ministerial error.

On to #2: Since we are talking about a month-to-month service, the district was right to post a new 470 and refer to it on the 471. Even if you take the state contract as a contract, the Kalamazoo Reconsideration Order (still my all-time favorite name for an order), which allows consideration of existing contracts as bids, instructs applicants to post a new 470, refer to that 470 on the 471, and for the Contract Award Date, put in the date that the applicant decided that the existing contract was most cost-effective. Which sounds like what Cascade did.

And #1 also vanishes as an issue: there is no problem with treating an existing service as a bid. And until the Sixth Report and Order unfortunately reversed the rule, there was nothing wrong with Cascade having switched service providers in the middle of a funding year.

Since the days are gone when the FCC mercifully granted appeals where applicants made honest mistakes, appellants had better harden their appeals and not admit any mistakes.

And I just have to wonder, if the decision had been posted on hraunfoss (named for an Icelandic waterfall), would it have been friendlier to Cascade?

In your old kit bag

2011-05-13T16:03:00.003-04:00

If you're looking for useful information, skip this post. If you're in a snarky mood this Friday afternoon, keep reading.

I was just reading the latest weekly USAC News Brief, and I got to the part that said, " What should I bring with me to the training?" and I thought, "I'll tell you what to bring." My list would include:

Rotten tomatoes.
The Star Trek Universal Translator. How else will you know that "Costs of the products and services are significantly higher than the costs generally available in the applicant’s marketplace for the same or similar products or services" really means, "More cable drops than we think you need."
One of those Mission Impossible rubber masks. When you ask a question, and you're told, "No, that isn't allowed," you'll fall into the trap of saying, "But we've always done it that way." Think about what you just told USAC. You want to be wearing a mask when you say that. And someone else's name tag.
A suitcase and a briefcase. Since the answer to most questions is, "That would be decided on a case by case basis," it just seems prudent to have the cases handy.
A comb. That way after you tear your hair out, you can do a Donald Trump swoop to cover the problem.
I would say caffeine, since some of the sessions tend to drag, but USAC is actually pretty good about keeping the stimulants flowing. [Which is really nice of them, considering that every year I see at least one over-stimulated audience member fly off the handle.]
Binoculars. The Renaissance Capital View Hotel is at the airport, across the river and 3 miles from the capital, so you'll need binoculars to view the capital.
Index cards. They only give you two, and really, are there only two things about this program that you find incomprehensible?

Caution! Irony may be hot.

2011-05-11T09:56:00.002-04:00

I wonder if the FCC was able to deliver this appeal decision with a straight face. Seems the applicant file the 471 on time, but mailed in the certification 8 days late, then filed an appeal to USAC, but that was 22 days late, so they filed an appeal with the FCC. 11 months later, the FCC denied that appeal, and the applicant filed a Request for Review. 7 years later, the FCC decides on the request.

The delay was a good thing, since Bishop Perry arrived in the meantime.

But you know, there is a rule that says the FCC has to decide appeals within 90 days. (Those of us who have been watching appeal decisions long enough remember that the FCC used to grant itself extensions all the time, but it seems that in 2005 they stopped bothering with orders like this one.) So in this case they missed the deadline by about 2,500 days.

47 C.F.R. 54.724

(a) The Wireline Competition Bureau shall, within ninety (90) days, take action in response to a request for review of an Administrator decision that is properly before it. The Wireline Competition Bureau may extend the time period for taking action on a request for review of an Administrator decision for a period of up to ninety days. The Commission may also at any time, extend the time period for taking action of a request for review of an Administrator decision pending before the Wireline Competition Bureau.

Oh wait, that's only USAC decisions, and this case was a review of an FCC decision. So that's OK, then. Unless someone with better search capabilities or more spare time than me can find the rule for the FCC considering review of its own decisions....

Train this

2011-05-10T10:33:00.002-04:00

USAC has announced the Fall training schedule. As much as I would like to support Newark, I'll be going to DC, as it is the place to see and be seen, and I'm sure we'll have an E-mpa meeting attached to it.

Today's snark will be a few suggestions for sessions:

The Gift Rule: Yes, that lunch did just cost your district $500,000

The New SPIN Change Rule: Hey, telecom costs were dropping too fast, so we thought we'd make you freeze them for 18 months

CEROA: So many Cost-Effectiveness Reviews are Overturned on Appeal, we made up an acronym for it

Scattered like dry leaves

2011-05-06T08:28:00.003-04:00

Could it be back pain from carrying around hundreds of pages of secret rules? Burnout from the processing blitz? Frustration that a rash of applications seem to be bouncing back to Initial Review? The uncertainty of processing applications using procedures that have not yet been approved by the FCC? For whatever reason, it feels like there has been more turnover in PIA reviewers than I've seen for many years.

OK, so even as an E-Rate consultant, the number of PIA reviewers I deal with is probably not a statistically valid sample. And it may be that I am driving them to leave, so it's a localized phenomenon. And it's not like it's a mass exodus; I think I've seen 3 reviewers leave since January. It's just that it seems like more than past years, and given that it only takes a few days to move an app out of Initial Review, it seems like a lot.

The pace of processing does seem faster this year, so I think burnout is the likely cause. Or maybe it's nothing.

And really, it doesn't make any difference. I don't care if the processing of my clients' apps is delayed, since nothing's going to actually get approved until the FCC approves the secret set of procedures for handling applications. For last year, the approval came on May 13th. For 2009, it came on April 2nd. For 2008, it was April 10th.

So I'm just hoping I don't see any more turnover once the FCC makes up its mind on the processing standards.

Jargon creep

2011-05-02T15:58:00.002-04:00

Long-time readers know I'm a bit of a language curmudgeon, but I enjoyed a new use of jargon I heard today.

I was just talking to a service provider with multiple SPINs, and rather than saying, "It looks like they used SPIN 1430xxxxx," she said, "It looks like they SPUN 1430xxxxx." [I'm using xxxxx to protect the innocent, of course.] I like it.

I've seen acronyms conjugated before: for example, "COMADed" is pretty common. But in this case, the acronym is spelled the same as an irregular verb, so the past tense is irregular. Splendid!

A Tale of Two Errors

2011-04-16T22:44:00.003-04:00

It was the best of orders, it was the worst of orders.

Let's start with the name. The best of names: the "E-Rate Correction Deadline Order." Excellent! The FCC's setting a deadline to correct this mess. Wait a minute, it's spelled "Erate Correction." "Erate"?! Not capitalizing the "R" is wrong, but dropping the hyphen is a sin.

The order itself starts out the best of orders: USAC is instructed to allow corrections until the FCDL is issued, even it that's longer than 15 days. Bishop Perry Everlasting! Excellent!

Or is it the worst of orders? The FCC makes it clear that the extended response time is only for "truly ministerial and clerical errors." Uh oh. "Such errors include only the kinds of errors that a typist might make when entering data from one list to another, such as mistyping a number, using the wrong name or phone number, failing to enter an item from the source list onto the application, or making an arithmetic error." Did Bishop Perry just get gutted? Up to this point, USAC hasn't been letting applicants correct errors without paying too much attention to the meaning of "ministerial." I'm afraid that this order is going to make them pay attention to whether the error is "truly" clerical.

But at least the FCC now has extended time to correct the spelling of "E-Rate" in the name of this order.

2-in-5 is 0-7

2011-04-15T14:03:00.003-04:00

Another year, another demand estimate.

First, the obligatory 2-in-5 Rule rant. For the 7th straight year, the 2-in-5 Rule has failed. Priority 1 requests plus the Priority 2 requests from 90% applicants come to 3.2 billion. (Could this be the year that the FCC can't find enough money to fund Priority 2 for 90% applicants?) Internal Connections requests from 80%-90% applicants are up 18% from last year. I'm tired of beating this dead horse, but I'll keep it up until they haul it off to the glue factory. The 2-in-5 Rule must go.

Speaking of horrible rules, look at the result of the new ineligibility of "unbundled warranties": a 20% jump in Basic Maintenance requests by 90% applicants. Not to worry: many applicants still have no idea that their SMARTnet and PBX service contracts are no longer eligible, and they won't know how to cost-allocate when PIA smacks them, so look for denials to skyrocket.

Other observations:

Internet access requests are up about 17%, while telecom requests are only up about 3%. I'm guessing it's dark fiber and the loosening of Web hosting rules.

After a 77% drop last year, this year we see a further 65% drop in Internal Connections requests from applicants with a discount of less than 60%. The message is finally getting through: if your discount is less than 80%, the Priority 2 gravy train does not stop at your station, so there is no point in waiting on the platform.

2011-04-06T15:08:00.002-04:00

For those of you tired of hearing me complain about the spelling of "E-Rate," you'd better skip today's gripe.

Has anyone else noticed that PIA reviewers are spelling it "ERate"? I think the Subject line of every PIA request I've received so far this year includes "ERate." While I applaud the capitalization of the "R," the lack of hyphen is a greater sin than a small "r."

The home front of the browser wars

2011-03-24T12:24:00.003-04:00

OK, first I have to say that the online tools are working pretty well this filing system. My sense is that the MTBC (Mean Time Between Crashes) is about 25 clicks this year, where in most years past, it's been closer to 10. And I haven't noticed any outages. It does seem that idle pages are the devil's workshop; leaving a page alone for several minutes usually seems to bring on a crash.

The system seems speedier, but I think that's because of a browser change.

See, my teenage son finds Internet Explorer to be a worthless pile of bits, and has insisted that I use Google's Chrome browser. Don't tell him I said so, but I think the kid is right. Chrome feels faster, especially on USAC forms.

One of the reasons it feels faster is because some of USAC's "features" don't work with Chrome. You know that little pop-up that appears every time you enter a 470 number, telling you about the 470 you entered? OK, the first time it can be useful (though it still comes across know-it-allish), but with each subsequent FRN on a 471, I feel an increasing urge to strangle something. Well, with Chrome, that pop-up doesn't appear.

Using Chrome as my primary browser and Firefox as a secondary browser has given me a new appreciation of how hard it is to design Web pages to work cross-browser. Best example: with Firefox v3.6, the Apply Online page looks fine. But upgrade to Firefox v4.0, and it looks like someone kicked over those nice stacks of buttons.

Some of you are thinking: "Secondary browser?" Come, grasshopper, let me explain the horrors of the "session." See, USAC's online tools use "sessions." Basically, the Web server remembers who you are and what you're doing. Which is great, except if you're doing two things at once, you create two sessions, and they can crash into each other in unpleasant ways. Data gets corrupted, applications crash, etc. However, if you use 2 different browsers, the Web server manages to keep your sessions separate. So if I'm doing a 471 using Chrome, and I need to look at last year's 471, I open Firefox. Then if I need to Submit a Question at the same time, I'm forced to open Internet Explorer. (Don't tell my son, OK?)

Over-extended

2011-03-14T09:36:00.002-04:00

Regular readers know that I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to terminology: the BEN mess, the meaning of RFP, the proper capitalization of E-Rate, and on and on.

But words do matter, and the latest USAC News Brief creates a mess by misusing the word "extension." USAC's problem is that they want to know how many lines an applicant has, and apparently some applicants were reporting the number of billed account numbers. So they asked applicants to give them the number of lines, not the number of accounts. OK, that's fine, but they referred to those lines as "extensions." That won't cause confusions for most applicants without a phone system, since they are paying for a phone line for each extension.

But applicants with a phone system are going to start sending the wrong info. In a phone system (from a little key system to a big PBX), there is a distinction between "lines" and "extensions."
When someone says "lines" they mean "external lines," the lines that you're paying the phone company for. "Extensions" is the number of phones connected to the phone system. So a dinky key system might have 4 lines and 16 extensions. A PBX might have 46 lines (coming in on two PRI circuits) and 500 extensions.

USAC says, "Be sure to include those lines and extensions in your line count." Which makes it sound like the owner of the key system should report 20 lines (4 external lines and 16 extensions), and the PBX owner should report 546 lines. Those numbers are adding together apples and oranges, and do not give a clear picture of usage.

Precise wording matters, and USAC should clarify that they want to know about all the lines that appear on a phone bill, but do not want internal extensions included in line counts.

Christmas in March

2011-03-10T16:22:00.003-05:00

Hey, I stumbled across a Christmas list I made in 2006, and thought it would be fun to go back and see which wishes have been granted over the last 4 years.

Granted:

New online Form 486
"Two-signature/two-date" finally put to rest
Registration of consultants
Dark fiber eligible
The same PIA reviewer 2 years in a row (it does happen sometimes)

On #3, I kind of feel like, "Be careful what you wish for." The FCC has registered consultants, but it hasn't done anything to drive out the quacks, which is what I was hoping for. But there is hope: E-mpa is beginning self-regulation of the consultants, which should work out better than any FCC attempt to regulate the industry.

Not granted:

COMADs only for Waste, Fraud, Abuse, not errors
No Form 486
All FCC appeals decided within 90 days
Publish the secret 700-page PIA manual
How about publishing 200 pages of it?
How about just telling us what triggers a Cost Effectiveness Review?
Don't take the Data Request Tool offline at night
At least let us know when the DRT will be offline
At the very least, let us know that the DRT is offline. As it stands now, you just get a message that no records were found.
A "copy" button on the 470 and 471 which lets you import all the info from last year's forms [For most small, low-discount applicants, those forms are identical year in and year out, and for all applicants, many elements are identical.]
Let applicants edit BEARs after they've been sent to service providers, so we can correct errors the service providers find
An online tech plan tool that applicants can use, set up so that it will generate plans that the SLD won't later decide are inadequate
A list describing the most outrageous requests. You know that PIA reviewers must pass around really hilarious requests. Let us all in on the joke.
Block 4 information in the Data Retrieval Tool
The discount matrix topping out at 80% for equipment
An "about us" page for the SLD. There aren't that many people there, and I'd just love to see a brief resume for each of them.
Mel Blackwell in a red suit and beard, flying all over the country, handing out Priority Two funding to applicants with a 40% discount. Ho ho ho.

A lot of my unfulfilled wishes have to do with the online tools. Mel promised to fix at least some of them, but he did say that was dependent on getting a new IT infrastructure, and I gather we're all still waiting for the FCC to approve funding for that.

It's a wrap

2011-02-24T16:47:00.002-05:00

I believe the 470 filing season is over for me. It would have been over sooner, but I got a call at 3:00 p.m. from a school: "Can you do our E-Rate for us?" How could I refuse? Now I think I'll go home before anyone else calls.

It also would have been over sooner if the 470 application hadn't gotten so buggy at the end there. I was averaging 3 crashes per form.

And of course, it would have been over a *lot* sooner if a few clients weren't such procrastinators.

Anyway, in honor of the close of the window, I have a fun "Stupid 470 Trick" for you. It's not a bug per se, since you have to do something verboten to make it happen, but it is kind of amusing.

OK, so here goes:

Create a 470 (oh, go ahead, as long as you don't hit "Submit" at the end, it doesn't count).
In that page after you get your 470 number, check the boxes to put in Telecom and Internet services (any two categories will probably work, but we'll use these).
Put some telecom services in Item 8.
Click the "Next>>" button to move to Item 9.
Put in and Internet service or two.
Use the browser's "Back" button to move back to Item 8. (Do not use the "Previous" button at the bottom of the form. Since you're never supposed to use the "Back" button, this step makes this process a parlor trick, not a bug.)
Put one more telecom service in Item 8.
Use the "Next>>" button to move back to Item 9.
Note that all the telecom services you had put in Item 8 have now overwritten the Internet services you had written in Item 9.

Sure, it's a cool trick to amaze your friends with, but I can tell you, I didn't think it was so cool when I discovered it by accident.

I have not done cross-browser testing, but I'll bet it works no matter what browser you're using. Also, I'll bet you can skip step 7, but I didn't test that, either.

Entities on the move

2011-01-11T14:49:00.004-05:00

I have ranted more than once about the use of the word "entity" in the E-Rate program. A November 2010 News Brief tried (but mostly failed) to explain the difference between "entity number" and "billed entity number."

I just noticed a new muddying of the water. On Item 5c of the new Form 470, applicants are asked to put the number of "eligible entities" covered by the Form 470. The instructions give examples of eligible entities, including elementary schools, bus barns, library branches, bookmobiles, ... (insert sound of record scratching here). Bookmobiles?! Does this mean bookmobiles get entity numbers? Or are there eligible entities that do not require entity numbers?

I'll say it again: the term "entity" should be struck from the E-Rate lexicon. The meaning of the word has become irreparably muddied.

90% is too close to free

2011-01-05T07:46:00.003-05:00

I've said before on this blog that the top discount on Priority 2 should be lowered to 70%. Now I'm kind of rethinking that. Now I think maybe the discount should be lowered for Priority 1, too.

Why am I changing? Well, I've always said that the waste, fraud and abuse (WFA) caused by the 90% discount is really just in Priority 2. Now I'm not so sure. I recently saw a case where an applicant made a purchasing decision on telecommunications services that I think is wasteful, because they knew that they were going to get 90% off the cost. Now, this applicant didn't do anything wrong that I could see: they followed all the rules, and the solution they chose is not fraudulent or abusive. But I'm sure without E-Rate funding, they would have made a different decision. And I think they might have made a different decision if they'd been forced to pony up 30% of the cost, instead of just 10%.

I still think all the real WFA is in Priority 2, but for the first time I've seen how a 90% discount in Priority 1 is a problem, too.

To paraphrase a recent New York mayoral candidate: "The discount is too damned high!"

Waiving in the New Year

2010-12-30T10:08:00.003-05:00

I sure hope the good folks over at the FCC got what they wanted for Christmas, because they certainly gave out plenty of holiday cheer. Taking a quick look at recent appeal decisions, the FCC tally since November 23rd:
Appeals granted: 69
Waivers granted: 205
Denied: 1

It's like the heady days after the Bishop Perry Order, when it seemed like the FCC would waive anything.

Another thing that jumped out at me: many decisions came within 60 days of the date the appeal was filed. The fastest I saw was one appeal in the Academia Bautista decision; the appeal was filed on 11/22/10 and decided on 12/19/10. That is breathtaking speed for the FCC. True, that decision also included appeals that were filed in 2005, but it's the holidays, so let's look on the bright side.

More ubiquitous than I thought

2010-12-22T10:41:00.002-05:00

Well the applications for the Education Deployed Ubiquitously 2011 pilot program are in. (You can see them by going to the FCC's ECFS (Electronic Comment Filing System) Search for Filings page, type "10-222" (without quotes) into the "Proceeding Number" box and click the "Search for Comments" button.

As of this morning, there were 88 submissions. Some look like duplicates, but it still looks like over 80. So now I guess the Wireline Competition Bureau gets to spend their holidays reading through grant applications. Since earlier documents indicate they are expecting to award funding to around 10 applicants, they'll be playing Scrooge to around 70 applicants.

I'm actually surprised they got so many applications, since it's only supposed to be schools that are already giving students off-campus wireless access.

hraunfoss, we hardly knew ye

2010-12-21T14:22:00.002-05:00

Warning, severe E-Rate geek alert. Honestly, I don't know who but me would even notice such minutiae, but I like to think that there are people who are as consumed with this stuff as I am.

Over the weekend, I noticed that I could not access any document which was stored on hraunfoss.fcc.gov. Which is a drag for me, because lots of appeals, orders, etc. were stored on that server. There are probably a couple hundred links on this site to hraunfoss. But I figured someone had kicked a power plug out of the wall on the way to happy hour, and on Monday morning would plug it back in and hope that no one had noticed.

Then I noticed that some of the documents that would have been on hraunfoss were becoming available on www.fcc.gov under a new URL pattern. Uh oh, hundreds of broken links to repair?

But today I've noticed that hraunfoss is alive again, and that it appears that the FCC has left an autoforward for documents that moved off hraunfoss, so if I use the old URL, I get to the new page. (Want to try it? Type in the URL http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-10-2360A1.pdf and look at the URL you end up at.

From a practical standpoint, it would be better for me if hraunfoss went away, since all the applications that normally detect URLs as you type them and turn them into hyperlinks automatically never seemed to understand that "hraunfoss" could be the start of a URL.

But I hope it stays around. For me, hraunfoss always conjured a lovely image of a castle in the Scottish highlands. I liked it much better than it's compatriot, fjallfoss. (Turns out they're both waterfalls in Iceland. Google translator says hraunfoss means "lava waterfall" and fjallfoss means "mountain waterfall," but they also seem to be specific waterfalls in Iceland.)

Now this is the kind of information that should be on E-mpa's certification exam for E-Rate consultants.

Start Your Engines!

2010-12-14T17:03:00.002-05:00

Well, maybe at least think about kicking the tires. The filing window has been announced: January 11 to March 24.

I'm happy the window is so late.

For those keeping track, here's how the window stacks up against years past, in terms of window length and compliance with the FCC rule requiring 60 days between publication of the Eligible Services List and the opening of the window:

So the window is a typical length. The time between the publication of the ESL and the opening of the window is unusually large, and really, the ESL was announced back in September, so it's almost like the FCC followed their rule this year.

He's no Joe Barton

2010-12-14T16:22:00.002-05:00

I'm breathing a little sigh of relief: Joe "Bleed It Dry" Barton lost in his bid to return to chairmanship of the House committee which oversees the E-Rate. Instead, we have Fred Upton, which is a good thing. I think.

First of all, he knows the E-Rate, since he has been chairman of the Telecommunications Subcommittee.

The ALA once characterized him as "very supportive of the E-rate."

The only action I can find (since his part in the 2005 call for serious reform) is sponsorship of a bill to allow schools to get E-Rate funding for emergency notifications systems. Which makes me fear that he'll join in the mission creep that I'm afraid will be the E-Rate's undoing.

Still, that's just a dark cloud on the horizon. For now, the political sun shines on our little patch of heaven.

New window

2010-12-03T12:34:00.003-05:00

Three blog posts in one day! It never rants but it pours.

Once again, the envelopes that USAC uses have changed. Now it's an envelope with one big window instead of 2 smaller windows.

My main complaint is the same complaint I've had since 2006: all the envelopes are white. My secondary complaint, which I also first raised in 2006: BEAR notifications are still on white paper, regardless of the funding year.

Here's the weird thing. For FCDLs, each page of the letter is folded, and the folded pages are stacked. So if you grab the cover sheet and pull, only the cover sheet comes out. For BEAR notifications, the entire stack of pages is folded together, so if you pull the cover sheet out, it brings all the pages with it.

The fold-then-stack method is a pain for us. You have to pull out each page, unfold it, restack the pages, then staple them. The silver lining is that you can pull the cover sheet and toss it,* then look through the window and see enough of the first page to tell what's in there.

I'd like to see the next step in saving paper: put the address info on the first page of the letter and get rid of the cover page. I mean, look at the BEAR notification letter: an entire sheet of paper with only an address on it. Then a sheet of paper that has four lines of useful info, followed by just over a page of boilerplate that I haven't read in year. And then a separate piece of paper 6 lines of useful info. (OK, if an applicant has more than one FRN with the same service provider, there can be several sets of 6 lines each.) So 10 lines of information is spread over 3 pieces of paper. It could all fit on one piece of paper.

*Is tossing that cover sheet a violation of FCC rules? The Fifth Report & Order requires that "Beneficiaries and service providers must retain all official notification letters from USAC...." Does that include the cover page? I sure hope not.

The SPIN cycle

2010-12-03T11:50:00.003-05:00

The Sixth Report & Order has finally been published in the Federal Register, which means we now know the date that all the changes will go into effect: January 3rd.

Which means from now until January 3rd, we need to do all the SPIN changes we can. If you were thinking about changing service providers any time before July 1st, do it now to avoid the heinous new SPIN change rules.

Item 21 squeeze play

2010-12-03T10:29:00.002-05:00

On the Service Provider conference call this week, I heard that applicants will be required to submit Item 21 Attachments inside the window. Currently, applicants are encouraged to submit Item 21s right away, but you don't actually have to submit them until the application goes into PIA review.

The new rule makes some sense, and it won't be a problem for most applicants, especially since I've got to think that Bishop Perry, patron saint of the procrastinator, will force the USAC to allow Item 21s to come in late, either following a warning letter (like a missing certification) or as part of the RAL process.

It is going to be more problematic for us consultants, who have a lot of Item 21s to do. But I'm not a big believer in shaping rules for the convenience of consultants, so I'll just deal with it.

What bugged me on the call was a small technical matter that isn't changing: you can't begin to create an online Item 21 Attachment until the 471 has been submitted. In my presentations on how to file for the E-Rate, I used to recommend that applicants complete the 471, then do the Item 21s before submitting the 471, because sometimes you catch an error in your 471 while you're doing the Item 21s. I no longer recommend that, since you can't do it if you use the online Item 21s, which I encourage applicants to do.

The inability to work on Item 21s until the 471 is filed provides an incentive to do the Item 21s on paper. And no one wants that.

Taking a systems-design look at it, the inability to file the Item 21s before filing the 471 makes no sense. The Item 21 Attachment is a description of the service received. In theory, that should be known at the time the 470 is filed. OK, the Item 21s also have pricing info, which isn't known until the a service provider is selected. But still, service provider selection takes place before contract completion, so the Item 21 Attachment information is known before some of the other information in Block 5.

If USAC's tools didn't limit us, here is the process I would recommend to people who are filing:

When you file your Form 470, go ahead and fill out everything on the Form 471 except Block 5. (Of course, you can't do this unless you file your 4701 after the window opens.)
Start working on the Item 21s. You'll have to revise some service descriptions after bids come in, and you can't do pricing yet, but get the basics in there.
After vendor selection is done, complete Block 5 (except for Contract Award Date).
Complete the Item 21 Attachments.
After contracts are signed, complete Block 5.
Review and submit the Item 21 Attachments.
Review and submit the Form 471.

While I'm on the subject, here are some previous rants about the Item 21s:

And that's all I have to say about that.

FCC smackdown

2010-11-28T12:49:00.003-05:00

I just read the Argos Public Library decision, and two things jumped out at me:

It's short. Brusque, even. Usually, these orders start with a one-paragraph summary, then a couple of paragraphs of background (including applicable rules), then a few paragraphs of discussion (which describes the decision and how the rules apply to the cases). Then a paragraph that starts with "ACCORDINGLY, IT IS ORDERED" containing the legal mumbo-jumbo (maybe followed by one or more "IT IS FURTHER ORDERED" paragraphs). This order has only one paragraph of discussion, which is really the meat of any order. Even the footnotes, often the source of interesting peeks into FCC thinking, are meaningless.
It's not applicant-friendly. It only granted 20 appeals, and denied 32. I noted that the days of the FCC waiving everything in sight ended early in 2009. But this order makes it clear that the party is definitely over. Once upon a time, you could file a Form 471 four months late without any good reason, and get a waiver. For this order, the rule of thumb seems to be: we'll forgive a 471 filed within 14 days of the window, or 30 days if some emergency occurred.

Unlike the warm waives of the old Bishop Perry days, this order is like a splash of cold water.

He's baaaaaack!

2010-11-10T16:54:00.002-05:00

What's the number one threat to the E-Rate? Well, it has been mission creep, but after this month's election, E-Rate Enemy #1 is looming.

Rep. Joe "Bleed It Dry" Barton has made no bones about wanting to kill the E-Rate. When the Republicans were voted out of the majority in Congress, his efforts were thwarted. Now the Republicans are back in. Party rules about term limits would normally keep him out of the chairmanship, and the scuttlebutt was that he wouldn't get a waiver of those rules. But he's said all along that he will get the chairmanship, and now he's apparently dishing the dirt on his chief rival for the chairmanship.

This could get ugly.

Diana Ross and the E-Rate

2010-11-10T16:03:00.002-05:00

Who knew the E-Rate was heading for the Supreme Court? It's the FCC v. AT&T, coming to the Supremes in January, and really, it has almost nothing to do with the E-Rate. But I think the last time the E-Rate made it to the Supreme Court, they handed down the kludgy CIPA rules for libraries, so I am disquieted.

In a nutshell, the FCC investigated SBC Communications (now part of AT&T) because of some fraud (I'm pretty sure it's this case), and then a competitor filed a FOIA request to get the records of the investigation. The FCC released some of the records, and AT&T said they shouldn't have, because of the FOIA exemption for "personal privacy." The issue before the Supreme Court is whether corporations get "personal privacy."

I'm surprised that the FCC released any info. As I've mentioned before, the FCC won't even release the material collected in a PIA investigation to the applicant that was investigated. So a competitor can get the results of a fraud investigation, but an applicant can't get the results of routine application processing?

Meanwhile, I doubt the competitor who originally requested the records will have any use for them if they're ever released, since they're now six years old.

Anyway, back to the case at hand. I don't think the case will have much effect on applicants, but I'm a little afraid that the Supreme Court will grant personal privacy to corporations, and the FCC will use that decision to reinforce the shroud over the PIA process.

Ubiquitous disappointment

2010-11-09T10:43:00.002-05:00

The FCC has released details on the Education Deployed Ubiquitously 2011 (EDU2011) grant program. My biggest complaint: the word "ubiquitously" should have been used more, well, ubiquitously. I mean "Education Deployed Ubiquitously" may be the all-time best name for a federal program (or sub-program or whatever you want to call this), and they have acronymed it away. At least EDU2011 isn't a terrible acronym, although for those of us who can remember when there were only 6 top-level domains, edu means higher ed, not K-12.

What, you thought I was going to say something about the actual program? OK, here are the bullet points:

Application deadline: 12/17/10
Open only to applicants who had implemented (or had complete plans to implement) before 9/23/10
Applications must be 20 pages or less
There is no application form
File a 471 for the project, with "EDU2011" as the Applicant's Form Identifier

This seems like a lot of extra work for the Wireline Competition Bureau, and if the program is successful, it will mean more demand for Priority One funding. What really worries me is that if off-campus wireless Internet access for kids becomes eligible, we'll see a cottage industry created to meet that niche, and the 90% discount will be too close to free, and we'll have schools paying for a lot of underutilized Internet access.

Or maybe I'm just getting curmudgeonly in my old age.

2010-11-05T23:37:00.002-04:00

This week's News Brief brings up one of my pet peeves: the word "entity." I've said before, the program needs to find new terminology. The problem is that "entity number" and "billed entity number" are very different things. The News Brief tries to draw a distinction: an "entity number" is attached to a location, while a "billed entity number" is attached to an organization. But even in the News Brief, it gets muddled. The brief says, "The city or town enters its entity number in Block 1 of all appropriate program forms." Shouldn't that be "billed entity number"? And what do you do if you want to find an entity number? Use the "Billed Entity Number Search tool." What if you're looking for an entity number for a non-billed enity?

We need to strike the word "entity" from the E-Rate lexicon.

Prime ministerial

2010-10-29T16:39:00.003-04:00

So it's the day after the final BEAR push, leaving me time to ponder questions such as, "What exactly is a 'ministerial error,' anyway?" So I looked it up and found this definition in the Code of Federal Regulations, C.F.R. 19 §351.224(f) :

Definition of “ministerial error.” Under this section,
ministerial error means an error in addition, subtraction,
or other arithmetic function, clerical error resulting from
inaccurate copying, duplication, or the like, and any other
similar type of unintentional error which the Secretary
considers ministerial.

(It's from Customs regulations, but that's close enough for government work.)

By the way, I checked, and Bishop Perry (the patron saint of "ministerial and clerical") does not define "ministerial." The FCC actually asked for a definition of "ministerial" in the 2005 NPRM, but they don't seem to have adopted one. I don't remember seeing a definition in any of the responses to that NPRM, but I definitely could have missed that.

Smarter than the average BEAR

2010-10-28T11:01:00.002-04:00

So here's a positive data point from this year's BEAR season: we only had to do three BEARs on paper. More and more service providers are getting the hang of the online certification over the past couple of years, but last year we still had to do a fair number on paper.

One nagging problem with online certification: I haven't seen the service provider interface for BEAR approval, but apparently the button they press says "Certify." So newbies take a look at the form and click on "Certify." But if they don't check a little box next to one of the FRNs, that FRN is cancelled. Most BEARs are only one FRN, so it's easy to miss that check box. So every year we get a handful of canceled BEARs, which we then have to redo. Even experience certifiers forget to check the box sometimes.

There should be a warning when a service provider clicks the "Certify" button that says, "You didn't check the little box next to the following FRNs. Click 'Accept' to cancel those FRNs, or click 'Edit' to check the box before certifying."

And while I'm giving out BEAR beefs, why can't I modify a BEAR after submittal. It happens every year, more often than I'd like, that a service provider says, "It looks like you included this ineligible charge in your amount, fix it." Unfortunately, I can't fix it, so the SP has to cancel the BEAR and I have to post a new one.

Before a BEAR is certified by the SP, I should be able to make changes to it.

Ho Ho Ho

2010-10-25T18:58:00.002-04:00

Mel Blackwell does not have a Saint Nick physique, but he certainly brightened my holidays.

USAC released a News Brief today (if I ran USAC, any News Brief that came out on Monday would start with "Extra! Extra! Read all about it!") which said:

We expect the FY2011 filing window to open in early January 2011.
The window will remain open for about the same number of days as in the past, which means that we expect the window to close in mid-March 2011.

I have been saying for years that the window should be later, and I finally get my wish. I'm sure it's only because USAC is scrambling to get the online 470 and 471 updated to meet new FCC requirements, but my hope is that after they try it for one year, it will become the norm.

E-Rate, not E-rate

2010-10-04T12:31:00.002-04:00

OK, one final rant from the Sixth Report & Order.

Faithful readers will know that I have my knickers in a twist about the spelling and capitalization of "E-Rate." After belittling others for spelling it "eRate," someone pointed out to me that the FCC spells it "E-rate." I tried to discern Congressional intent, but as one might expect, that just muddied things further.

While reading the 6R&O (it's high time we had an acronym with an ampersand, don't you think?), I was captivated by the title "E-Rate Deployed Ubiquitously." "Deploy" and "ubiquitously" are just splendid words. As I savored the name, I realized that it proved that my capitalization was right all along.

See, the FCC capitalized the "R." Of course, they always capitalize the "R" in headings. Wait a minute. Why would it be capitalized in headings? Only the first letter in a word is capitalized in a heading. But the first letter of a word is also capitalized in a proper noun like "E-Rate." So the only logically consistent position is that the "R" is always capitalized. (Well, I suppose you could make the case that it's not a proper noun, but then in the middle of a sentence you'd get "e-rate" and that's just immoral, so let's not go there.)

Time to launch a campaign for an NPRM about the spelling of "E-Rate."

Sixth Report & Disorder

2010-10-04T12:08:00.003-04:00

I am in full gripe mode this morning, so I thought I'd throw all my minor gripe about the Sixth Report & Order into one post. I've already posted my major gripes.

Again, I just want to make clear that as a whole, the 6th R&O improves the program. But the positive changes were all touted in the FCC press release, so I'll stick to the dark side.

“As long as schools are in compliance with CIPA requirements, we leave specific policymaking decisions up to individual schools to address.” (footnote 76)
So now that schools are offering Internet access to adult community members, do they now have to comply with the heinous CIPA rules that the Supreme Court came up with for libraries? That would mean turning off filtering for individuals who request unfiltered access….
“we plan to include a box on the FCC Form 471 when we next revise this form for applicants to check if they are taking advantage of this rule change.” (paragraph 25)
You know, I was just thinking that there aren’t enough checkboxes on the Form 471.
“an eligible school or library may assess computer fees to help defray the cost of computers" (paragraph 26)
Does a converse to the Free Services Advisory apply? Can my school charge $5/hour for computer use, and throw in Internet access for free, or will I have to do some cost allocation? Look for the blossoming of PTO-sponsored cybercafé fundraisers.
“the cap for funding year 2010 will be increased to $2,270,250,000.” (paragraph 36)
Well, at least it's in the right direction. At this rate, 40% schools will get some P2 funding around, say, Stardate 2542.7.
“E-Rate Deployed Ubiquitously” (paragraphs 44-50)
First off, kudos for using the word "ubiquitously." You just don't see that word often enough. But $10 million dollars to a “handful” of applicants who have already deployed off-campus wireless Internet access? Is there really a pool of schools and libraries that are spending $1 million/year or so on off-campus access? And who gets stuck evaluating the proposals?
“we direct USAC to make available on its website and update on an ongoing basis a list of donation and recycling locations for communications equipment.” (paragraph 75)
This is not how USAC should be spending USF funds. Remember the Eligible Services Database? I foresee cobwebs on this database.

Maintain this

2010-10-04T11:03:00.004-04:00

What's the worst news from the Sixth Report and Order?

“We find that an unbundled warranty is an ineligible BMIC service because it is purchased as a type of retainer and not as an actual maintenance service.” (paragraph 106)

OK, first off, the reasoning is faulty. If an applicant pays every month for a phone line to connect an alarm system to the security company, that line is eligible, even if the alarm is never tripped. Inside wiring maintenance costs are eligible, even though wires don't wear out. To say that a warranty is not an actual service just because you don't use it every year doesn't hold water for me.

I understand where this is coming from. I, too, am appalled at the cost of manufacturers' warranties on phone systems and data network equipment. It definitely feels like they have us over a barrel. But it doesn't rise to the level of abuse of the program. The exorbitant amount that PBX manufacturers charge to schools and libraries is the same amount they charge everyone else. No one is gouging the E-rate.

What effect is this going to have? On the phone side, the answer is Centrex.

I have a meeting this week with a client that is about to sign a new 5-year contract on their phone system, at about a half million per year. Take a look at their options. It would be foolhardy to use a phone system without a service contract, so unless they can come up with a half a million a year out of their own pockets, they'll have to turn off their phone system (and since it was purchased 2 years ago with E-rate funds, let it sit in the corner for 3 more years until they can sell it for scrap). Now normally, they could get a nice deal on some hosted VoIP, and they might be able to cover the district for maybe $1 million per year, doubling their demand for funding. But now their data network won't have a warranty, either, so they can't jeopardize student safety by running their voice over that network. So they'll have to see if they can find a phone company that will give them Centrex service. With Centrex, the wiring will all be installed and maintained by the phone company, and the equipment will be back in the CO, maintained by the phone company. What will that cost? I'm estimating $3.5 million/year.

So the E-rate will pay an extra $3 million per year to move this district backwards to a technology that was cutting-edge in the '60s.

On the data side, applicants will probably just pay out of their own pockets for a spare edge switch, and swap it out when a switch malfunctions. Of course, the district will have to hold on to the malfunctioning switch for 5 years, because they really won't be able to replace malfunctioning hardware, but the switch probably still has some value, so they can't just throw it out, and E-rate rules won't let them sell it to someone who might fix it.

Core switches are more problematic. Applicants will be forced to design networks which can still function in the absence of any single core switch. Those networks will be more expensive, and will likely be limping along if a core switch does fail. More bad engineering made cost-effective by unfortunate E-rate rules.

There is another possible workaround, depending on how this rule is interpreted. It is clear the FCC wants applicants to set up maintenance contracts which set up a pool of hours, where the service provider is paid for hours actually used. If such a contract could also include a pool of money for purchasing replacements for failed components, then maybe we wouldn't see a resurgence of Centrex.

Whether the FCC allows applicants to throw replacement parts into the pool, setting up these pools means:

Applicants will try to set up a pool big enough to cover the worst-case scenario, meaning lots of approved funding will go unused every year (which I don't see as a problem, but which has been called out by the GAO and Commissioner McDowell). And the maintenance cost-effectiveness tug-of-war, which already eats up too much PIA time, will require a whole separate division of Solix to manage.
No matter how big the pool is allowed to get, the applicant runs the risk that there will not be enough funding to replace equipment wiped out by a major catastrophe. Just when the applicant needs help the most, it won't be there.

The pools will increase demand for funding, squeezing the fund in the short term. After a couple of years, the big pile of unused funds from the pools will start flowing back into the fund, and in the end I'd guess that disbursements will actually be lower than with warranties, except in years with large natural disasters.

While I agree that manufacturer warranties seem exorbitant, there is a reason that such warranties are "ordinarily provided in the marketplace to entities receiving such services without e-rate discounts."*

* Third Report & Order, paragraph 23, where the FCC defined Basic Maintenance.

My head is SPINning

2010-10-04T10:30:00.003-04:00

Tucked away in the Sixth Report & Order is an offshore earthquake which will provoke a tsunami of lost funding and appeals to the FCC:

“[T]o alleviate uncertainty regarding the types of SPIN changes that are permissible following a competitive bidding process, we clarify that once a contract for products or services is signed by the applicant and service provider, the applicant may not change to a different service provider unless (1) there is a legitimate reason to change providers (e.g., breach of contract or the service provider is unable to perform); and (2) the newly selected service provider received the next highest point value in the original bid evaluation, assuming there was more than one bidder.” (paragraph 92)

That looks reasonable. And it addresses an area of actual abuse: service providers eschewing the competitive bidding process, then swooping in after funding approval and taking the business.

But most SPIN changes are not abuse. They are applicants who got a better deal on, say, long distance and want to switch providers. So now if a school district finds an opportunity to save money on their month-to-month phone service, they have to wait until they can file a Form 470, wait 28 days for no bids to arrive, then make the switch. For a lot of applicants, it won't be worth the hassle, so they'll forego the savings opportunity.

But that's not what worries me. I used to be a federal procurement officer, so I'm used to regulations that tie the hands of ethical employees and raise costs in order to make abuse more difficult for the unethical. The problem I have is when this rule hits the real world.

Because in the real world, the person who decides to switch phone carriers is often not the person who files for the E-rate. When I go to a client at the end of the funding year to collect bills to file a BEAR, I often hear, “Oh, we forgot to tell you: six months ago we found a cheaper phone company and switched service.” In that case, they will simply lose six months of funding. USAC won't be able to help them, so they will file a Request for Waiver with the FCC. It's going to happen a lot.

The only hope is that getting a lower price will be considered a "legitimate reason to change providers." Then it will just be a matter of hoping you only got one bid in response to your 470. However, if you got 2 or more bids, you are now locked in, no matter what kind of savings comes along.

SPIN changes were one tool to help applicants work within the broken E-rate procurement process to get the best deal. Now that tool has been ruined. Opportunities for cost savings will be lost, and innovation will be stifled.

Sorry, but I think the solution is worse than the problem.

Some shadows on dark fiber

2010-10-04T09:51:00.004-04:00

I'm thinking I'll do a few posts about the Sixth Report & Order, because, well, it is HUGE.

I'll start with dark fiber. In general, it's great that dark fiber is eligible. And great that lit fiber can now be purchased from non-telecom providers. But of course, I'm going to gripe about some details. (Sometimes I think I should call myself the Angry E-Rate Nerd, but the Angry Video Game Nerd would probably sue me. Plus I can't seem to produce the requisite vulgarity.)
My gripes:

“Although lit fiber is already eligible for funding as either a telecommunications service or an Internet access service … an applicant cannot lease the lit fiber for voice telecommunications from a non-telecommunications carrier.” (paragraph 11) I'm sure this isn't supposed to mean what it actually says. It seems to say that fiber leased from a non-ETP cannot be used to transport the district’s internal VoIP between locations. And that if a district has one of the new concurrent-call hosted VoIP services, where the telecom service is riding over the district’s WAN, the WAN must be leased from an ETP. I hope what is meant is that voice service has to be purchased from an ETP, regardless of what transport it rides over. I just wish that's what the order actually said.
“Providing services using dark fiber may involve a number of additional costs beyond lease payments for fiber connectivity, and those costs should be factored in to a total-cost comparison across bids.” (paragraph 19) Oh, the pain. So let's say a typical client seeks a WAN, and they're trying to decide between a typical telco WAN offering, which would give them a live Ethernet port, or dark fiber, which would give them an unlit fiber pair. To use the dark fiber pair, they’ll need to put a fiber GBIC in their switch. The fiber GBIC is not eligible in a Priority 1 FRN, so it can't be included in the "primary factor" cost calculation. So now is the district required to create a separate criterion for total cost? Or one for ineligible costs? Either way, a disgruntled telco bidder can say it's not an "apples-to-apples" comparision, since the cost of the GBIC will be weighted less heavily. What about the cost of the GBIC slot in the switch? And what about the cost of the Ethernet port on the switch that the lit WAN would use? Do we include that cost? How do we calculate the cost of a single Ethernet port on a switch which has 24 copper ports, a fiber port, and a couple of GBIC slots? Now imagine the headache of calculating the cost of a GBIC+slot and Ethernet port on a chassis switch with a half-dozen blades in it. There is not enough caffeine in the world.
“We include as eligible maintenance costs and installation charges.” (paragraph 19) “This includes charges for installation within the property line.” (footnote 52) “For purposes of the E-rate program, we will consider Indefeasible Rights of Use (IRU) purchase arrangements as a lease of dark fiber. To the extent an IRU contract contains significant upfront charges, and consistent with our existing requirements regarding upfront costs associated with the purchase of telecommunications services, applicants must amortize upfront, non-recurring charges where the upfront charges 'vastly exceed' the monthly recurring charges.” (footnote 51) Finally, some good news. It seems the “unused capacity” statements in the press release were more vision than rule. Go ahead and build a new dark fiber network, as long as the construction costs are amortized the way we currently do with lit fiber networks.
“[W]e decline to extend support to cover special construction charges that may be incurred to build out connections from applicants’ facilities to an off-premises fiber network” (paragraph 19) “Special construction charges include costs for design and engineering, project management, digging trenches, and laying fiber.” (footnote 54) Wait.... What?! Did the FCC just say that when leasing fiber (lit or dark), the cost of running the fiber from the pole to the property line can’t be included? Really? Applicants can pay the service provider to run fiber all over town, but not for that one short segment? OK, but what is an applicant supposed to do in the real world? The typical fiber lease is a 40-year IRU, with the buildout cost amortized over the first five years. So the cost to the applicant is, let's say, $2,000 per month for the first 5 years, then $200 per month until the end of the contract. All buildout costs ("special construction" or otherwise) are included in the monthly cost. Is the service provider now required to dig into that cost and separate the cost of connecting the client to a pole from the cost of building out the rest of the WAN? If so, look for lots of contracts where the service provider actually runs their network into the client's building, so there is no special construction required. Another example of bad engineering made cost-effective by convoluted E-rate rules. Let's hope that what this really means is that if your contract has a separate line for special construction, you have to cost-allocate it out of your request.

Maybe I'm reading too much into the sentences I quoted, and my concerns are unwarranted. But I won't be advising any clients to get dark fiber this year. Let some other brave souls be the PIA beta testers on this one. I don't want to sign a 40-year contract based on Version 1.0 of the rules.

Where's that order?

2010-09-27T15:52:00.002-04:00

So Thursday was an exciting day, with the big reforms being approved by the Commission. The big question today: where is the order? The other orders approved by the FCC were up on the FCC Web site before the end of the day, but here we sit, 4 days later, and still no order. The News Release gives a list of the big changes, but doesn't give the detail we need.

They can't be tweaking, can they? I mean, didn't the Commission approve exact wording? So we've been waiting for someone to convert the file to a PDF? Send the files to me; I'll do the conversion right away.

One piece of big news, the ESL has been approved. So let's play the window game. The Third Report & Order requires at least 60 days from the release of the ESL to the opening of the window. So if we get the ESL today, the window could open on Nov. 26th. That's the day after Thanksgiving, but not technically a holiday. Then if we got an 80-day window, we're looking at the window closing on February 14th.

However, the 60-day waiting period has been a fiction, and the 80-day window is up to the whim of USAC (per the first Third Report & Order), so I'm putting my money on a February 10th window closing.

Fax desperados

2010-09-24T10:33:00.004-04:00

Looks like Solix has a new fax server, or maybe someone finally figured out how to configure the one they had. I think maybe I'm the only person who sees enough PIA faxes and is obsessive enough to notice, but someone at PIA spent time and effort making this change, and I wanted to give that person a shout out, because the new header is better.

It's an improvement in a few ways:

The first page is no longer dominated by an ad for the fax server manufacturer.
The typeface on the header was too big, and now it's smaller. I think it's actually a little too small now, but it's still an improvement.
The header shows the page number as "Page 001," which is an improvement over the annoying "Page %U-001" that was at the top of every page (and was "Page 1 of %U" before that if I remember correctly). Unfortunately, they didn't move to "Page 1 of 8," which would have been very helpful, but anything's better than that %U. I do wish that it didn't say "Page 001," because to me, it's a hint at the chilling possibility that I might someday get a fax from PIA with more than 99 pages.

I do have one criticism, though, and it's actually a significant one: I think PIA faxes are illegal. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act requires that all faxes identify what telephone number they're coming from. It's in black and white at 47 U.S.C. 227(d)(2): "The Commission shall ... require that any such machine ... clearly marks, in a margin at the top or bottom of each transmitted page or on the first page of each transmission ... the telephone number of the sending machine...."

Messages from PIA generally have the reviewer's fax number on the last page, but we should be seeing Solix's fax number at the top of every page.

By the way, "the Commission" mentioned in the code is the Federal Communications Commission, so maybe someone should get on this.

Better late. Even better never.

2010-09-22T15:04:00.002-04:00

The Department of Education filed a comment yesterday on the NPRM for off-campus wireless. Thank God they filed it two and a half months after the comment deadline, only two days before the Commission is set to vote on it, and after Chairman Genachowski has announced what they'll be voting on. Because this way, there is no way that the FCC can consider their heinous suggestion.

Their comment is all about Internet access for mobile devices. No surprise, they come out in favor, and they actually give a couple of good examples to support their position. I'm at peace with off-campus wireless, as long as E-rate's not paying for the devices. What I find heinous is the suggestion that the DoE put forth for keeping the cost of wireless access from overwhelming the fund: set up a pool of money that would be awarded as competitive grants.

First, the separate pool is terrible. Pretty soon every little industry will want a separate pool, and the balkanized fund will be much less efficient and easier for politicians to target.

But the idea that makes my blood run cold is making part of the E-rate a competitive grant. Of course it would mean more districts driven into the arms of an E-rate consultant, which is good for my bottom line, but it would be:

Terrible for districts, who would have to plan wireless initiatives with funding that's completely up in the air. Since the E-rate doesn't make multi-year awards, would they compete every year? What if they lost in year two?
Terrible for PIA, which would have to start reviewing competitive grants. Administrative costs would soar.
Terrible for the program, setting a precedent which could eventually cause the program to buckle in on itself.
Terrible for the FCC and their goal of streamlining the program.
Terrible for NJ, where we're still a little shell-shocked over losing $400 million in a competitive grant because someone included the 2009-2010 budget in the grant proposal instead of the 2008-2009 budget.

Thank God it comes too late for the FCC to even consider it.

Ex Parte frenzy

2010-09-21T16:28:00.002-04:00

With all these ex parte conferences, does anyone at the FCC have time to get any work done? For a while there, we saw a Web hosting flurry, but the blizzard these days is all about dark fiber.

As one might expect, the phone companies are coming down hard against dark fiber. Reading between the lines, it looks to me like the phone companies realize they're fighting a rear guard action, and are looking to limit what kind of dark fiber is allowed. Of course they're still saying, "Dark fiber shouldn't be allowed," but lately the main arguments seems to be, "the FCC should study this matter further." (Any time anyone asks the government for further study, I know they're on the losing side of whatever issue, and are just trying to delay.)

I was curious to see what the Communications Workers of America would say, so I actually read all of that one. They had four points, which I would summarize thus:

Don't allow dark fiber. Managing a broadband network is too complicated for the amateurs in school districts and should be left to CWA professionals.
Be sure that applicants include the extra costs to provide broadband over dark fiber as opposed to a managed service.
Protect workers rights and labor standards.
Ensure adequate funding. Increase the cap.

My reaction:

Whoever wrote this point has not sat in the seat of a school tech director. At best, a broadband connection from a telecom company is transparent. You plug your switch into the provider's Ethernet ports at both ends, and away you go. But in reality, the packets you send into that port are wrapped in an MPLS envelope so that they can be shifted to whatever transport protocol the carrier is using, routed over the carrier network, then reconverted to Ethernet at the other end. There's a lot that can go wrong in the carrier network, though I have to say that other than physical failure (a telephone pole going down or an underground cable meeting a backhoe), carrier networks are pretty bulletproof. But with a dark fiber connection, I'm plugging a dark fiber directly into my switch. No protocol conversion, no routing. The only thing that can go wrong is physical. In addition to being cheaper, dark fiber is easier.
Extra cost? What, the cost difference between a 1000BaseT GBIC and an 1000BaseLX GBIC? There is no extra equipment for dark fiber. For a carrier, there is a *lot* that goes into converting a piece of dark fiber into a broadband network. For a school district, the only difference between dark fiber and a managed service is whether the port is copper or fiber.
Now this is the kind of argument a union should be making. However, the political power of unions really seems to be on the wane, so I don't think we'll see any labor protections in the E-rate program.
Hear, hear.

A tip of the hand

2010-09-21T14:40:00.004-04:00

The day after tomorrow is the big day: the FCC will consider a Report and Order making some of the changes that have been in all the NPRMs lately. According to the agenda, "The Commission will consider a Report and Order that improves connectivity for students and library patrons, and accelerates the National Broadband Plan’s goal of affordable access to 1 gigabit per second broadband at community anchor institutions across the country, by upgrading, modernizing, and streamlining the ERate program."

The details of the order aren't out yet, but Chairman Genachowski telegraphed a fair number of the reforms in a speech today at a conference in California. I couldn't stand to listen to the speech and I'm too impatient to wade through the transcript, so I'm relying on a news report based on a briefing paper from the Chairman.

According to the news report, the following changes are coming:

cut red tape
increase broadband options
launch a pilot program for off-campus wireless connectivity for learning devices
allow schools and libraries to tap into unused fiber already in place and state, regional and local nets and bypass "more expensive options"
allow schools to offer that fast broadband service to the community so students can access "affordable" high-speed access at home
open the door to "School Spots," where schools have the option to provide Internet access to the local community after students go home

Here's what I think of those changes:

I'll believe it when I see it.
I can't think of any broadband options that are currently ineligible.
News flash: Last year's Eligible Services List says, "A wireless Internet access service designed for portable electronic devices is eligible to be funded if used for educational purposes." Or is the FCC talking about mobile for pilots? That would be new.
Oh, crap. Maybe I'm just a pessimist, but this makes it sound like the FCC is going to make dark fiber eligible only if it's already in place. How on earth is an applicant going to be sure that no new fiber will be laid? And won't new fiber be needed from the applicant's buildings to the first pole at least? Or is this just a way to allow applicants which currently have lit fiber to switch it to dark fiber?
Double crap. Schools should not be in the ISP business. OK, maybe in rural areas. If the order just says that schools can allow remote users to share their Internet pipe, I'm OK with that, but if it does anything to subsidize those remote connections, it will be a drain on the fund to subsidize home Internet access, which is not what the E-rate was supposed to do. I've already blogged about how mission creep might sink the E-rate.
This is just a continuation of a waiver from last February. And don't tell anyone, but a lot of schools have been doing this all along. Think about how many school districts offer some sort of continuing education classes for adults. What, you think they have a separate Internet connection for those classes? I think this is a great idea; the community gets access, and it doesn't cost the schools anything. And parents who come in to use the Internet connection will have more sympathy when their kids complain about how the crappy filtering software doesn't let you go to any good sites.

Hallelujah chorus

2010-08-17T18:01:00.002-04:00

Somehow this one seems to have snuck up on everyone. You know all those terrible audits? The ones where CPAs who hadn't known of the existence of the E-rate until a month or two before they arrived at school sites to sit around for a couple of weeks dreaming up ways to look busy? Well, for the most part, they're history.

As Mel Blackwell promised last year, the audits are looking much better this year. In fact, they aren't even calling them audits. IPIA requirements will be met by the Payment Quality Assurance (PQA) Program, and it feels more like a Selective Review than an audit. No on-site visit, fewer ridiculous document requests.

There will still be audits, but not by the hundreds (I hope).

It's time to celebrate!

Hate the new PIN

2010-08-10T16:16:00.002-04:00

Anyone else notice that the system for assigning PINs has been out of commission for quite a while? Well, it's finally unstuck, which is good news.

The bad news? The new PINs are more secure, which means they're much less catchy. PINs used to be a 6- or 7-letter word, with a special character like & or + at the beginning or end. I already mentioned that some of combinations seemed oddly apt for the particular applicant.

But the new PINs are random combinations of letters, numbers and special characters. Sure, it's more secure, but it looks like someone ate alphabet soup and vomited. Except I don't think alphabet soup includes @ or & (maybe Campbell's makes a cyberalphabet soup these days).

Just another example of simple elegance giving way to paranoid functionality.

FCC for breakfast

2010-05-29T17:01:00.003-04:00

The E-rate is seeping further into my life. I'm making pancakes for the kids this morning, listening to "On the Media" on NPR, which is usually snarky commentary on journalistic ethics or the sorry state of print journalism, and this piece about the FCC's new direction for Internet regulation comes on. Even my Saturday morning is not safe from E-rate (I'm feeling anarthrous today).

And a colleague sent me the agenda for the FCC's next meeting, which is going to be all about whether Internet access is going to become a "telecommunications service" or remain an "information service." The three directions they are considering:

Leave it an information service.
Make it a telecommunications service.
Make it a telecommunications service, but then waive most of the regulations that apply to telecommunications service.

I know which direction I'm betting on. The FCC has not been very consistent on most things, but they are generally consistent on this: if there is a simple solution and a complex one, they'll take the complex one.

As far as I can see, the two big questions for E-rate:

Will the Internet Access category on the Eligible Services List vanish?
Will Internet service providers be forced to pay into the Universal Service Fund?

I'm guessing that IA will vanish. Apparently digital transmission can be offered under IA, and since 2006 so can voice (VoIP), so the distinction is becoming meaningless.

My crystal ball says that all broadband providers will have to start paying into the fund.

COMADness

2010-05-27T07:17:00.002-04:00

OK, now this appeal gets my goat. Some little library is getting a little funding for their phone line, and USAC drops an audit on their heads, and then COMADs them for not being able to document the number of bids received.

First of all, who says the district has to create documentation of the number of bids? If the FCC wants to have that information, then it should be on the Form 471. I know, it would make the form more complex, but it wouldn't make the application process more complicated. It just makes it obvious how complicated the process is.

Second, the recovery amount is $486. How did an applicant this small get audited in the first place? And how about we have a bid threshold like government purchasing law at every other level of government everywhere? Making a purchase under $1,000? No bid necessary. At least the FCC seems to be moving in that direction with the NPRM. And what is the de minimis level on COMADs? Because I guarantee that this COMAD has already cost more than $500, and now that it's been appealed to the FCC, the cost is going into the thousands.

What a waste of everyone's time.

FCC jetty

2010-05-27T07:09:00.002-04:00

Just when it seemed the FCC would waive anything as long as there was no waste, fraud or abuse, they've found a deadline it won't waive without a compelling reason: the deadline for filing an appeal. Yesterday they denied 104 appeals that were filed late.

That seems like a reversal of precedent to me, but I'm too lazy to go back and try to find late appeals that were granted in the past.

On the one side, it seems odd to say that you can file a Form 471 late for no good reason, but you can't file an appeal late.

But I think the FCC may have been forced into this, because the appeals thing was getting out of hand. Some of the appeals that they denied were filed years after the appeals deadline, because applicants saw the about-face that the FCC made with Bishop Perry, and realized that under the new kinder/gentler FCC, they could win an appeal. And I have seen pitches from consulting companies offering to remedy past mistakes by appealing to the FCC well after the fact.

PIA peeve

2010-05-25T23:02:00.003-04:00

OK, I just can't hold this one in any more:

When you do an online Item 21 Attachment, on the Line Item Detail screen, there is a link that brings in the dollar amounts from the 471. That's really handy, but in past years you always had to remember to click that link first, because it erased everything else. This year there is a new "feature": you can't click that link until you've selected the service type from the drop-down. But of course when you click the link, it erases the service type you just had to select, and you have to select it again.

How did they not catch that during testing?

Christmas in May

2010-05-20T19:02:00.003-04:00

I just got the new NPRM from the FCC, and have only had a chance to skim a few parts of it so far. My initial reaction: "Holy crap!"

This is real reform.

A few standouts so far:
"We propose to...eliminate E-Rate technology plan requirements for priority one applicants...."

"we propose to eliminate the requirement that applicants for priority one services file an FCC Form 470...."

"One option would be to allocate funding for internal connections based on a per student cap...."

"Eliminate the 2-in-5 rule...the 2-in-5 rule has not served its intended purposes."

I feel like a kid on Christmas morning.

There are proposals I'm not so hot on (the suggested wording of the codification of competitive bidding is rather Grinchy), proposals I'll have to think about (making all Basic Maintenance ineligible; Scroogey?), and proposals that are mostly great, but need some tweaking (the equipment disposal rules). But those are like getting socks from Aunt Martha: disappointing, but they don't spoil the holiday.

Time to think about FY2011. Oy.

2010-05-20T09:26:00.002-04:00

With the USAC announcement of next fall's training sessions, it's kind of like FY2011 has started. And I'm still doing service substitutions for FY2008, not to mention the last stages of audits from FY2005.

I'm such an E-rate geek that I kind of like the trainings. I don't learn much about the application process, but Mel always has a few good tidbits, I get to see familiar faces, and there's always at least one newbie who gets apoplectic about one of the more heinous rules.

Last year the theme was "Helping You Succeed." Anyone care to suggest a theme for this year's training? Hmmm....

Helping You Medicate
Hoping You Succeed
Success is Overrated, Anyway
Define "Succeed"
I Did Not Succeed With That Woman (That would have been funnier eight years ago. So pretend you're in an audit and try to remember what you were thinking way back then.)

Some sessions I'd like to see:
Cost-Effectiveness Reviews: How much is too much?
The 2-in-5 Rule: Creates so many headaches, Bayer gives us a kickback
The 30% Rule: We don't care if the FCC gutted it, we'll still get you somehow
PIA Review: Like going to a dentist who doesn't believe novacaine is necessary
New Audit Procedures: How to Use a Tanto

Surf's up!

2010-05-18T21:34:00.002-04:00

It's official: the first wave of Funding Commitment Decision Letters will come out May 26th. That's later than in the recent past, but the wave will also be larger.

USAC says 40% of all the applications received will be in the first wave. Pretty impressive. They'll be approving over $400 million, which is a record.

Wait a minute: $400 million is what, maybe 15% of the total funding requested? So Solix is definitely looking at the small applications first.

Weekend off

2010-05-14T17:53:00.003-04:00

Two months with nary a blog post, and now two in one day.

USAC has announced that the Apply Online section of the Web site will be down for most of the weekend. [Update: upon closer reading, I've noticed it's only down for 4 hours.] It's nice to get some warning, though would it be too much to ask to get, say, 48 hours' notice?

USAC is billing this as "scheduled maintenance," but I have to wonder if it isn't in response to the failures we've been seeing all over the site: Form 470 searches, online BEAR submissions, data retrieval tool. Let's hope this outage ends all that.

Now it begins

2010-05-14T17:44:00.002-04:00

The approvals for 2010-2011 can begin.

The FCC has approved the PIA application review procedures. Now PIA can begin issuing funding commitments; I'm betting on May 25th. And word on the street is that the first wave of commitments will be a tsunami.

I get a chuckle out of the public announcement of this approval, since the FCC considers the actual review procedures to be secret. I guess I'm done ranting about it, though.

National Broadband Plan putting the squeeze on E-rate

2010-03-16T09:59:00.003-04:00

The FCC has released the National Broadband Plan. Being the blowhard that I am, of course I'm going to give my opinion. Being an E-rate geek, most of what interests me is how the plan affects the E-rate. And being lazy, I'm going to base my opinion on the FCC's Executive Summary (if I were a bit more self-aggrandizing, I guess I could say, "And being an executive...").

This blog post will be about changes outside the E-rate program that will affect E-rate. [Stylistic note: I have gone over the the dark side, and am now not capitalizing the "R" in "E-rate" and will be using it anarthrously. Mostly.]

Changes in the neighborhood: Item 3 of how "government can influence the broadband ecosystem" is all about expanding the USF.

The FCC plans to disband the High Cost Program and use it to create a Connect America Fund (CAF) and a Mobility Fund. I'm no expert in the High Cost program, but this just looks like mission creep to me. Since the CAF will cover wireline "broadband and voice" and the Mobility Fund will cover cell phones, it looks to me like they've just added broadband to the High Cost Fund, and I've already stated my concerns that a ballooning High Cost fund is bad for E-rate.

Watch your language: the FCC plans to design the new funds in a "tax-efficient manner." First of all, the USF is technically not a tax. I'm concerned that the FCC is listing toward the old Government Accounting Office report that said the USF should be part of the Treasury, and Congressional Budget Office report that found the USF would be more efficient if it were a tax. The idea of moving E-rate into the Treasury is favored by those who want to kill the E-rate, so I'm opposed.

Biggering and biggering: Still under item 3, the FCC plans to "broaden the USF contribution base." Hmmm.... Interconnected VoIP carriers are already contributing, as are landline and cell phone carriers. Who's next? ISPs? Since they'll be a major recipient of CAF funding, it would seem to make sense.

"Expand the Lifeline and Link-Up programs": So the Low-Income program will grow, too.

A "National Digital Literacy Corps"? No. Just go down to your local library, and you'll see that someone is already offering digital literacy courses. Go to you local Senior Center. Check out your local school district's (or community college's) continuing ed program. The availability of digital literacy training is not an obstacle to adoption.

On to Item 4, where the FCC calls for "expanding reimbursement for e-care." OK, not the Rural Health Care program is going to balloon, too.

Here are two vague but threatening goals under item 4:
"Support...small business' use of broadband..."
"Support deployment of a ... public safety mobile broadband network...." I'm afraid we may see two more programs shoved into the USF.

From Long-Term Goal #4: "anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals, and government buildings." [Interestingly, in the press release, "government buildings" was replaced with "military installations."] Those mostly aren't community anchors. OK, schools do provide broadband access to students and to the community after school. My local hospital provides free wireless Internet access for visitors, but I would hardly call it an Internet anchor. Military installations don't offer community Internet access, nor should they. The only government buildings that offer public access are libraries, which should be mentioned.

All in all, it looks like what I feared is another step closer to reality: the Obama administration may kill E-rate by squeezing it out of funding with all these new programs.

2-in-5 is 0-6

2010-03-13T21:31:00.002-05:00

Another demand estimate, another failure of the 2-in-5 Rule. Total all the Priority One requests and the Priority Two requests from applicants with a 90% discount, and you get $2.85 billion. Even with rollover of unused funds and some denials, we're not going to see funding of Priority Two requests for 80% applicants. Again.

The 2-in-5 Rule must go.