E-Rate Central is reporting that at last week's USAC board meeting, the projection was that Priority Two requests will only be funded down to the 87% level. (Although at this point the board is only asking the FCC to deny applications at 83% and lower.)
Can we get rid of the 2-in-5 rule yet? Over a year ago, I declared that this rule must go. What is the FCC waiting for? 2-in-5 doesn't succeed in cutting demand, it harms applicants and creates waste.
Alas, we haven't seen the flood of appeals to the FCC due to the 2-in-5 rule that I predicted a year ago. I don't know if that's because most applicants have figured out the 2-in-5 thing, or because the denials haven't really started coming in big numbers yet. So it looks like we'll be stuck with 2-in-5 at least through the 2009-2010 funding year.
Last week the cutoff was 83% and perhaps 86%. This week, USAC reports $800M available for future funding. According to FFL, it would take about $400M to fund down to 83%, but would take almost $800M to fund through 80%. Any bets on how quickly the FCC rolls over half or all of this to 2008?
ReplyDeleteIn the past, the FCC hasn't made supplementary rollovers (though funding has been available). But 86% is kind of embarassing....
ReplyDelete