Christmas in March

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:

1. New online Form 486
2. "Two-signature/two-date" finally put to rest
3. Registration of consultants
4. Dark fiber eligible
5. 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:

1. COMADs only for Waste, Fraud, Abuse, not errors
2. No Form 486
3. All FCC appeals decided within 90 days
4. Publish the secret 700-page PIA manual
5. How about publishing 200 pages of it?
6. How about just telling us what triggers a Cost Effectiveness Review?
7. Don't take the Data Request Tool offline at night
8. At least let us know when the DRT will be offline
9. 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.
10. 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.]
11. Let applicants edit BEARs after they've been sent to service providers, so we can correct errors the service providers find
12. 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
13. 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.
14. Block 4 information in the Data Retrieval Tool
15. The discount matrix topping out at 80% for equipment
16. 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.
17. 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.