FCC the EPC

OK, on to Part IIIB of the recent Report and Order and Order on Reconsideration: Simplifying the E-Rate Program. I'll just go through the 8 simplifications in order. And for no good reason, I'm going to assign a score to each.

Transition of Services During a Funding Year: This is for the case where you're switching providers (or switching service with the same provider) and the cutover date changes from what you put on the 471. This happens a lot, and in the past, it always meant the applicant lost out on some funding. The FCC's change is kludgy, but it should work OK: 8 out of 10.

Guidance on Cost Allocation: A really minor clarification that if 90% of a telecommunications service is used for eligible purposes, the other 10% is "ancillary" and the whole service is eligible. That's good, but I don't have any clients that will be taking advantage of this. And now the bad news: all off-campus use has to be cost-allocated. So if your library has external wireless access points that extend the signal into the community a bit, that has to be cost-allocated out. Because of that pain in the allocation: 3 out of 10.

Mid-Year Bandwidth Increases: Now if you need to increase your bandwidth mid-year, you can do it with a Service Substitution, though you'll have to pay the full amount of any price increase. I need some clarification on this sentence: "Applicants that can demonstrate that the bandwidth and price increase were covered by an existing FCC Form 470 and competitive bidding process would not need to rebid the service." Are they saying that if the new bandwidth fits within the range of bandwidths requested on the last 470, I can just refer back to that 470 in subsequent funding years? That's nice, but most of the time, the new bandwidth is going to come with a new contract. So I can use the old 470 and create a new contract months later? Yeah, I don't see that sailing through PIA, so I'm going to post a Form 470 and "bless" the contract per the Kalamazoo Reconsideration Order. Not as generous as they could have been, but a good clarification: 8 out of 10.

Spam Bids: Basically, if you want to disqualify bids, you need to put the disqualification criteria on the Form 470. The Commission mentions, but doesn't say how to deal with, the spambids that are basically a price list of everything the vendor offers. The only bids you can just toss are bids with no pricing info ("call for pricing"). And you can't actually toss the bid: you have to retain it for 10 years with an explanation of why you disqualified it. A total PIA (and I don't mean Program Integrity Assurance): 3 our of 10.

Bids Received After 28-day Bid Period: Unless you set a bid deadline, you have to consider all bids that come in before you begin your bid evaluation. Fine. We generally have clients hold off a day or two on starting their bid evaluation to allow tardy bids. But the order tiptoes right up to an existing conundrum, but fails to address it: since the 28th day is the Allowable Contract Date (ACD), how can we consider bids that come in at, say, 9:00 pm on that 28th day, and still sign a contract on that day? The Commission shot down the reasonable suggestion that bids be cut off at 11:59 the day before, but they weren't really clear whether, if I start my bid evaluation at, say, 9:00 am on the 28th day, I can disregard bids that arrive after 9:00 am on the 28th day. It only really matters for applicants who file their 470 at the deadline, but still, it should be clarified. A good minor clarification, but they missed an opportunity to make an important clarification: 4 out of 10.

Bye-Bye Form 486: Yes! The 486 is going, going, not gone until FY 2028. Why the delay? Some minor edits on forms and we have to wait two years, but the whole bidding portal can go live in 15 months? That delay keeps this reform from getting a perfect score: 9 out of 10.

Invoicing Rules: Forgot to file an Invoice Deadline Extension Request before the Invoice Deadline? Now you have an extra 15-day grace period to file that request. Good. And USAC has to warn you if it's close to the deadline and you have an FRN with no invoices. Better. You still only get one 120-day extension unless you can show "extraordinary circumstances," but that's fair. Filed an invoice and it was denied after the Invoice Deadline? Now you've got a 60-day grace period to file again. [I probably shouldn't point this out, but that creates an ability to get infinite deadline extensions; just file a BEAR with an error, and when it gets rejected, you have 60 days to file another invoice with an error, giving you another 60 days, and so on.] Finally, if you file a Form 500 to reduce an FRN, the subsequent RFCDL does not reset the Invoice Deadline. Fair enough. No complaints: 10 out of 10.

Updating Definitions and Rules: "Internal connections": Clarifies that connections between buildings on a single campus are Category 2. "Consortium": Gets rid of the weird private-entities-if-all-services-are-tariffed exception, adopting the ECF definition of "consortium." Sections 54.503(b) and 54.513(d): Just cleaning up some changes that should have been made when previous rule changes were made. The changes aren't really good news, but they're reasonable: 7 out of 10.

And last, a little grammar curmudgeoning about the use of "the EPC" in paragraph 58 and footnote 118. As I have said before, acronyms are anarthrous, while initialisms require an article. So someone at the FCC (an initialism, though some late-night wag made it an acronym rhyming with "duck") pronounces EPC as "E-P-C" instead of "epic." Since USAC says it's pronounced "epic," and EPC is anarthrous in most of this order, the Commission should change all uses to be anarthrous.