I'm a bit behind on E-Rate news, so here's a little catch-up on supply and demand. The FCC set the cap on the fund at $2,413,817,693, an increase of 1.4%. USAC released a preliminary demand estimate: $2.643 billion in Priority One requests, $2.225 billion for Priority Two. The demand estimate will go up a little once paper 471s, and forms filed-late-but-not-too-late are added in, but then actual commitments will be lower as PIA pares some of the requests.
On the supply side, a 1.4% increase is just a rounding error. Chairman Wheeler has promised an extra billion, so let's assume it's not just accounting sleight of hand and tack that on. So we're up to $3.4 billion. I'll bet the Chairman included potential rollover funds in his $1 billion, so I won't add that in.
On the demand side, it looks like it might not be higher this year. Last year P1 demand was $2.7 billion, and P2 was $2.3 billion, so unless NYC filed on paper, I don't expect to see the double-digit increases of recent years. Let's assume that, like last year, about 45% of P2 demand is from 90% applicants. That means that P1 demand for all applicants plus P2 demand for 90% applicants will be $3.7 billion.
Supply = $3.4 billion. Demand = $3.7 billion. So we're close to P2 for 90% applicants. But will the FCC want to scrape together an extra $300 million to cover requests that will include services the Chairman doesn't want to fund, or just let P2 go down again to ensure a nice fat rollover to grease the transition to E-Rate 2.0 next year? The wheel is spinning, no more bets.
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