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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.