Another irony in the fire

I got a kick out of the FCC's recent appeal decision, where they took 7 years to forgive an applicant for filing an application 8 days late. But they've outdone themselves this time.

In a recent decision, they rejected 3 requests for review because they were filed too late. OK, the first one was filed 2 years late, but the second and third were filed 59 and 58 days after the orders they were appealing.

Wait, 58 days is too late? I had to go back and look this one up. It's true. According to the order that extends the deadline to appeal from 30 days to 60 days (on an emergency interim basis due to the anthrax attacks), petitions for reconsideration still have to be filed within 30 days. Who knew?

So anyway, these applicants file 29 and 28 days late, respectively, and the FCC responds 2,724 and 3,076 days later, respectively. I can't find an adjective to describe that.

Funding year mind games

Sometimes, I think USAC is messing with me. Well, not USAC exactly. In this case it was Vangent, I think (at least I was give a Vangent e-mail address).

Faithful readers will recall that on Sunday I expressed the opinion that the Form 470 should not be tied to a funding year. Today I get a call asking me which funding year I meant to put on my Form 470.

We put "2012" in Box 2, and they wanted to confirm that we meant 2012-2013.

Hmmm.... Let's think about the current situation. Right now, you can only file a Form 470 for 2011-2012. Even though it's 117 days to late to file a 470 for 2011-2012. Even with the kinder, gentler FCC, it's hard to imagine getting a waiver for a 2011-2012 application that gets started now. The only application that's going to get approved based on a 470 filed now is a 2012-2013 application. But USAC has me blocked.

Mr. Blackwell, take down this wall.

Glass half empty

Allow me to get grumpy when I should be celebrating.

This afternoon I got the first set of notes from a service provider concerning 2011-2012 funding requests. I should be happy:

1. This means that the applicants in question will be getting funded in the first wave.
2. The service provider is really on the ball, which gives me hope that the August bills (and maybe even the July bills) will already show the E-Rate discount.

But I'm grumpy:

1. The service provider spelled the name of the program "Erate."
2. Why do service providers find out before applicants?

On spelling:

I feel like I'm fighting a rear-guard action on hyphenation. First, PIA dropped the hyphen, then the FCC dropped it. Suddenly, the controversy over capitalizing the "R" seems insignificant. (What's that I hear you saying, that controversy always was insignificant? Pshaw!) Are we really going to end up with "Erate"? Sorry, but it looks too much like some declension of "erratum," which may be a fitting name for the program, but is hardly flattering.

On informing applicants:

OK, it's only a few days' difference, but every year it sticks in my craw that the entire E-Rate universe knows about funding approvals before the applicant. Service providers know right now what funding's been approved in Wave 1, a week before applicants find out. State E-Rate Coordinators also find out before applicants. It's all public information, so I don't object to the information being available to everyone, but it just seems unfair that applicants are the last to know.

Thinking Outside Box 2

So I needed to post a Form 470 this week, and a couple of things occurred to me.

First, why does Item 2 (where you fill in the the Funding Year) appear on the Form 470? The 470 is not necessarily tied to a funding year. For multi-year contracts, a Form 470 will be used for several funding years. And for construction projects, it may be necessary to file a Form 470 two years before the funding year. So why tie the Form 470 to a funding year?

While I was thinking about the Form 470's role in the E-Rate process, I realized that it offers a solution to the problems created by the heinous new SPIN change regulations. OK, maybe the Copan Order left things too wide open: applicants could do a SPIN change any time, to any service provider, without giving a reason. The new rules in the Sixth Report & Order remedy abuse that was apparently going on, but throws the baby out with the bathwater: you can't change without good reason, and if you do change, you have to pick whoever was the #2 bidder on the original 470. That means if a new money-saving opportunity comes along, applicants can't take advantage of it for 6-18 months. How about letting applicants switch any time they want, as long as they post a 470? That would stop the kind of abuse that the FCC was trying to stop, while still giving applicants the flexibility to take advantage of more cost-effective solutions that come up in the middle of the funding year.

It would go like this: someone at the school finds out they could save $100/month by switching long distance providers. Under my proposed scheme, the applicant could post a 470, accept bids for 28 days, and then switch providers.

It doesn't solve the problem entirely, since the district personnel who make the decision to change providers are not always aware that saving money by changing service providers is a violation of E-Rate rules, and the people who know the E-Rate rules often don't find out about the switch until it's too late. But at least my mid-year-470 plan would help out applicants who want to save money and are aware of E-Rate rules.

How are the mighty waterfallen

This is the third, and I hope last, post concerning the FCC approval of the PIA procedures. But this one has nothing to do with the actual approval or any of its perceived grammatical flaws.

It's all about the URL. In past years, the approvals of PIA procedures always appeared on hraunfoss.fcc.gov. This year, it's in a slick new format with the URL "www.fcc.gov/document/...." I like the new format, but it increases my concern that hraunfoss is being phased out. Comfortingly, the links at the top of the announcement (that let you open up Word, PDF and text documents) all point to hraunfoss, but if you click on them, you're redirected to transition.fcc.gov. So for the moment, it seems hraunfoss is gone, but not forgotten.

Stayed tuned for more on this unfolding Icelandic saga.

I've got your 30 days right here

On the approval of PIA procedures for 2011, the FCC said, "In addition, on a going-forward basis, USAC should provide the Bureau with USAC's proposed PIA procedures 30 days prior to the opening of the filing window, beginning with the procedures for Funding Year 2012."

Sorry but I just have to put on the grammar curmudgeon hat: "on a going-forward basis" sets my teeth on edge. How about just saying "going forward"? Or perhaps the slightly more elegant "in the future"?

They're pushing the due date earlier. In 2009, the FCC said, “we would ask that you provide the Bureau with USAC's proposed PIA procedures at least 30 days prior to the close of the FCC Form 471 application window.”

Imagine a world where the PIA processing procedures are approved before the opening of the window. The first wave of funding could come out during the window! Now that would be an incentive for applicants to get the 471 done early.

A more pessimistic (realistic?) colleague posed the opposite possibility: this could force USAC to open the window later. Mel Blackwell has said he'd like a shorter window. So maybe this will be the impetus to shorten the window to 50 days....

And they're off!

Hold on to your hats: the FCC has approved the PIA processing standards. USAC has been processing furiously, so there is a big pile of applications just waiting to be approved. Look for a monster first wave just as soon as USAC can warm up the presses to print FCDLs.

Unless.... The FCC mentions "substantive edits" were made. There is a risk that a lot of applications that had made it through PIA will be thrown back into review by those substantive edits.

Of course, we'll never really know: the edits, like the processing rules, are secret.