Sunday, April 22, 2012
USAC Gets Trumped
The article I mentioned in the Federal Communications Law Journal is available online now, so I'll be sharing my thoughts on it once I get back to the office. But reading through it, I noticed an interesting usage: the authors consistently called the program administrator "the USAC." I hadn't noticed that we all use "USAC" as an anarthrous noun. Technically, I suppose "the USAC" is correct, but to me, it sounds like "the Donald."
Saturday, April 14, 2012
A site for sore eyes
Hey, the new look for the USAC website is up. I like the new look, and the links in the upper left-hand corner seem more useful than the old ones. I'm so used to the old site, though, that I'm not a good judge of usability for the new one.
For now, it's a bit of a Potemkin village, though: once you click to any of the tools, you're looking at the old style. I guess that's what next weekend's downtime is for.
For now, it's a bit of a Potemkin village, though: once you click to any of the tools, you're looking at the old style. I guess that's what next weekend's downtime is for.
Friday, April 13, 2012
Iceland on my mind
Oh, and another important point from the recent FCLJ article on the E-Rate: footnote 15 cites the URL of the National Broadband Plan, which is on my favorite FCC server, hraunfoss. Let's hope that an immutable reference in such an august journal discourages the FCC from any plans to decommission hraunfoss, as they did with poor svartifoss.
Long live hraunfoss!
Long live hraunfoss!
The [r]ussians are coming
Hey, the E-Rate made it into the March issue of the Federal Communications Law Journal (the journal is available online, but the current issue isn't online yet). The title: Is It Time to Recreate the E-Rate Program?
I'm only getting started on the article (at first, I was daunted by the 30-page length, but it's about 30% footnotes and has the capacious margins usually found in children's books or those college papers where I found I didn't have enough content to fill the requisite pages), so I don't have a full review yet, but right there on the third page (page 278 using the journal's page numbering scheme), and the authors take a stand on a major issue, and I'm incensed. Here's what got my goat:
"Among the goals articulated in the National Broadband Plan is improvement of 'the connectivity to schools and libraries by upgrading the FCC's E-[r]ate program to increase flexibility [blah blah blah]."
Long-time readers will recognize the [r] as a poke in the eye for those of us who like our "E-Rate" with a big, bold R, not some sniveling little r. (Probably instead of saying "those of us," I should be saying "those of me," since the rest of the world is probably rolling their eyes and thinking, "Is he really going to go off on this again? (OK, so "rest of the world" should probably be "the other reader of this blog."))
So of course, I ran back to the National Broadband Plan and checked: did they really use the R? The answer: mostly not. Of the 94 uses of the word, 7 are correctly capitalized. And 4 of those are in titles of documents or names of organizations, which is usually capitalized, which of course proves my point that the R should always be capitalized.
And because the caffeine has not yet brought focus to my mind, I found myself following up on the inconsistent capitalization of "State E-Rate Coordinators Alliance" in the National Broadband Plan: what position does SECA take on this important issue? The answer: a little of this, a little of that. Now I have been writing paeans to SECA lately for their praiseworthy positions on many important issues, but they really need to make up their mind on this one. Just looking at their home page, If find 5 E-Rates and 7 E-rates, and I can't see any pattern. Wait, that's their old home page. The score from the new home page: hmm, not really any text there. How about the About Us page? 4 big Rs, 7 little ones, not counting the R in the company title.
The SECA site does have an out-of-the-box solution to this quandary: their logo uses all caps. So if we said that E-Rate stood for "Educationally-Relevant Assistance in Technology Endowment," then we could call it the E-RATE, and the whole thing would be settled.
Wait a minute. "Alliance"?! I thought it was the State E-Rate Coordinators Association. When did that change? I've had just enough caffeine to stop me from researching the answer to that question.
How is it that I could write all that about a single [r], when in college I had to pad my margins? The E-Rate is not that much more interesting than, say, Pushkin's Пи́ковая дама.
Hey, there's a new angle: not capitalizing the "R" conforms to Russian rules for capitalization. So "E-rate" is a Russian plot to subvert our culture.
I'm only getting started on the article (at first, I was daunted by the 30-page length, but it's about 30% footnotes and has the capacious margins usually found in children's books or those college papers where I found I didn't have enough content to fill the requisite pages), so I don't have a full review yet, but right there on the third page (page 278 using the journal's page numbering scheme), and the authors take a stand on a major issue, and I'm incensed. Here's what got my goat:
"Among the goals articulated in the National Broadband Plan is improvement of 'the connectivity to schools and libraries by upgrading the FCC's E-[r]ate program to increase flexibility [blah blah blah]."
Long-time readers will recognize the [r] as a poke in the eye for those of us who like our "E-Rate" with a big, bold R, not some sniveling little r. (Probably instead of saying "those of us," I should be saying "those of me," since the rest of the world is probably rolling their eyes and thinking, "Is he really going to go off on this again? (OK, so "rest of the world" should probably be "the other reader of this blog."))
So of course, I ran back to the National Broadband Plan and checked: did they really use the R? The answer: mostly not. Of the 94 uses of the word, 7 are correctly capitalized. And 4 of those are in titles of documents or names of organizations, which is usually capitalized, which of course proves my point that the R should always be capitalized.
And because the caffeine has not yet brought focus to my mind, I found myself following up on the inconsistent capitalization of "State E-Rate Coordinators Alliance" in the National Broadband Plan: what position does SECA take on this important issue? The answer: a little of this, a little of that. Now I have been writing paeans to SECA lately for their praiseworthy positions on many important issues, but they really need to make up their mind on this one. Just looking at their home page, If find 5 E-Rates and 7 E-rates, and I can't see any pattern. Wait, that's their old home page. The score from the new home page: hmm, not really any text there. How about the About Us page? 4 big Rs, 7 little ones, not counting the R in the company title.
The SECA site does have an out-of-the-box solution to this quandary: their logo uses all caps. So if we said that E-Rate stood for "Educationally-Relevant Assistance in Technology Endowment," then we could call it the E-RATE, and the whole thing would be settled.
Wait a minute. "Alliance"?! I thought it was the State E-Rate Coordinators Association. When did that change? I've had just enough caffeine to stop me from researching the answer to that question.
How is it that I could write all that about a single [r], when in college I had to pad my margins? The E-Rate is not that much more interesting than, say, Pushkin's Пи́ковая дама.
Hey, there's a new angle: not capitalizing the "R" conforms to Russian rules for capitalization. So "E-rate" is a Russian plot to subvert our culture.
Saturday, April 07, 2012
Christmas in April
Is there anyone else out there excited about the announcement that the USAC website will be down for 3 days, April 20-23? I'm not at all excited that the site will be down for the weekend. By the end of 3 days, I'll be going through withdrawal. I'm excited for two reasons:
- The first is that my optimistic nature (faithful readers will need a moment to stop laughing at that self-characterization) thinks that if they're taking the site down for 3 whole days, when it comes back up, it will be hugely improved. I can't remember the site ever being down for so long. And they're even taking down the static pages. What will we see? Will the Data Retrieval Tool show each disbursement on each FRN? Will the online 471 allow you to just snag all the info from the previous year, and then edit it, instead of starting from scratch each year? Will they replace that picture of the girl with a pencil with a picture of a girl using some kind of service eligible for E-Rate funding?
- I'm also pleased that the downtime is being announced so far in advance. It was in the News Brief on March 30th and appeared on the website April 5th. I am hopeful that we've send the end of announcing on Friday that they'll be doing site maintenance starting that day and running through the weekend when the 486 and BEAR deadline is Monday.
The combination of possible treats and advanced notice is like knowing Christmas is coming: I can't wait to see what the website will be like on April 23rd. How will I be able to fall asleep on April 22nd? But if this is just a replacement of creaky hardware with no change in functionality, it will be like opening that big shiny box under the tree to find it's just socks and underwear.
Monday, April 02, 2012
Goose sauce seems de minimis
OK, not the most interesting appeal decision: the FCC concludes that applicants were not using equipment that E-Rate paid for. But E-Rate geek that I am, I had to take a gander at the appeals. And one of the appeals jumped out at me, not because I thought the appellant had a good case, but because of the amount to be recovered: $388!
I ranted about this before: how is $388 not de minimis? An applicant makes a mistake (which is later corrected), but they either pony up $388 or get the Red Light treatment. How is that cost-effective? Just the USAC review of the audit cost more than $388. The appeal to USAC cost more than $388. The appeal to the FCC cost more than $388. And I'm only talking about the cost to USAC and the FCC, not the poor applicant. The de minimis standard should be at least $1,000.
As I pointed out, USAC states the de minimis standard for USF contributors is $10,000. (You'd prefer the FCC regulation? Here it is.) That $10,000 is not about forgiving errors. If a company would have to contribute less than $10,000, they don't even have to fill out the form to show that they don't need to make a payment (except VoIP carriers for some reason). Sauce for service providers: $10,000. Sauce for applicants: $388.
And while I'm whining, how come I know the de minimis standard for contributors, but the standard for audit victims is kept secret?
And of course I'm going to take it a step further, beyond audit recovery. If contributors can just blow off filing if they owe less than $10,000, how about setting a de minimis standard that says applicants don't have to go through the whole application process for requests less than $10,000? They could just fill out an online form with three blanks: BEN, discount percentage and total pre-discount expenses. (What about Block 4? For those few applicants who have more than one location and are requesting less than $10,000, just let them use BEN-wide totals, OK?) USAC sets a funding cap for that applicant. Then when the invoices come in, USAC can review the discount percentage and check to make sure the services are eligible (which they do at invoicing anyway, sometimes overruling the PIA decision).
Listen to John Lennon sing it:
OK, so the syllables don't fit into the melody. I think the difference is de minimis.
I ranted about this before: how is $388 not de minimis? An applicant makes a mistake (which is later corrected), but they either pony up $388 or get the Red Light treatment. How is that cost-effective? Just the USAC review of the audit cost more than $388. The appeal to USAC cost more than $388. The appeal to the FCC cost more than $388. And I'm only talking about the cost to USAC and the FCC, not the poor applicant. The de minimis standard should be at least $1,000.
As I pointed out, USAC states the de minimis standard for USF contributors is $10,000. (You'd prefer the FCC regulation? Here it is.) That $10,000 is not about forgiving errors. If a company would have to contribute less than $10,000, they don't even have to fill out the form to show that they don't need to make a payment (except VoIP carriers for some reason). Sauce for service providers: $10,000. Sauce for applicants: $388.
And while I'm whining, how come I know the de minimis standard for contributors, but the standard for audit victims is kept secret?
And of course I'm going to take it a step further, beyond audit recovery. If contributors can just blow off filing if they owe less than $10,000, how about setting a de minimis standard that says applicants don't have to go through the whole application process for requests less than $10,000? They could just fill out an online form with three blanks: BEN, discount percentage and total pre-discount expenses. (What about Block 4? For those few applicants who have more than one location and are requesting less than $10,000, just let them use BEN-wide totals, OK?) USAC sets a funding cap for that applicant. Then when the invoices come in, USAC can review the discount percentage and check to make sure the services are eligible (which they do at invoicing anyway, sometimes overruling the PIA decision).
Listen to John Lennon sing it:
Imagine there's no 470s
And no 471s, too
Nothing to file SPIN changes for
And no Item 21 attachments, too.
Imagine tiny applicants
Filling out tiny applications.
You may say I'm a dreamer....
OK, so the syllables don't fit into the melody. I think the difference is de minimis.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Don't Curse the CER
I'm such an E-Rate geek. Why do I even read this stuff? So it seems the House of Representatives passed the FCC Process Reform Act. It's never going to pass the Senate, and if it did, the President would veto it, but "process reform" sounds promising.
I'm not going to read the bill, since I'm trying to cut down on caffeine, and it takes a lot of stimulant to make it through an actual bill, but it seems the chairman of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee wants to promote openness and transparency in FCC processes and procedures. That sounded hopeful, but it turns out he was talking about the rulemaking procedures, which I've always thought was the most transparent part of the E-Rate. Imagine what the chairman would think if he learned about PIA and the 700 pages of secret rules.
Anyway, the bill would have forced the FCC to release the exact text of proposed rules, and give the public 30 days to comment. Sounds good, except that if the FCC actually made any changes based on public comment, wouldn't they then have to post the changed rule for another 30 days? I think it would mean interminable comment cycles.
The article says that the chairman complained that the FCC reformed the Universal Service Program without publishing the proposed changes even after approving them. I noticed the same thing with the Sixth Report and Order. And there were definitely some changes made in the Sixth Report and Order that were not in any NPRM.
But on the whole, I don't think we need to shine a flashlight on the reasonably well-lit rulemaking process. Instead, how about lighting a candle in the PIA darkness. Even better, let's set fire to the Cost Effectiveness Review, and let that cheery blaze illuminate the rest of the PIA process.
I'm not going to read the bill, since I'm trying to cut down on caffeine, and it takes a lot of stimulant to make it through an actual bill, but it seems the chairman of the Communications and Technology Subcommittee wants to promote openness and transparency in FCC processes and procedures. That sounded hopeful, but it turns out he was talking about the rulemaking procedures, which I've always thought was the most transparent part of the E-Rate. Imagine what the chairman would think if he learned about PIA and the 700 pages of secret rules.
Anyway, the bill would have forced the FCC to release the exact text of proposed rules, and give the public 30 days to comment. Sounds good, except that if the FCC actually made any changes based on public comment, wouldn't they then have to post the changed rule for another 30 days? I think it would mean interminable comment cycles.
The article says that the chairman complained that the FCC reformed the Universal Service Program without publishing the proposed changes even after approving them. I noticed the same thing with the Sixth Report and Order. And there were definitely some changes made in the Sixth Report and Order that were not in any NPRM.
But on the whole, I don't think we need to shine a flashlight on the reasonably well-lit rulemaking process. Instead, how about lighting a candle in the PIA darkness. Even better, let's set fire to the Cost Effectiveness Review, and let that cheery blaze illuminate the rest of the PIA process.
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