As of October 11, 2019, the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) has opened the Administrative Window for updating entity profile information in the E-rate Productivity Center (EPC) portal. Profile information includes an entity's classification, address, enrollment, National School Lunch Program information, and Urban/Rural status and is the basis of the discount calculation in the FCC Forms 471. USAC provides this courtesy update window each fall prior to the opening of the annual FCC Form 471 filing window. Applicants should carefully monitor and/or update their entity profiles from now until early next year at which time USAC will lock the data in EPC until the FCC Form 471 application window closes.

The deadline for delivery and installation of non-recurring services such as Category One broadband installation and Category Two Internal Connections is generally September 30, following the close of the funding year. Applicants with funding requests that contain non-recurring products or services that have not yet been delivered or installed must start working now on filing the FCC Form 500 to request USAC to extend the service delivery deadline and report extended contract end dates.

Henry Danielson, Tech Director at Coast USD tells K12HSN staff how the network monitoring tools made available through the TAPD program has helped him monitor the performance of the school's network and assess network vulnerabilities.

On August 2, 2019, the FCC released (DA 19-738) seeking comment on the proposed eligible services list (ESL) for the E-Rate program for funding year 2020.

The July 24, 2019, E-rate News Flash contained information regarding the Federal Communication Commission's (FCC) Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on continuing E-rate Category Two budgets. Interested parties are encouraged to file comments in the FCC's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) under proceeding 13-184 by August 16, 2019, and reply comments by September 3, 2019. Parties may also view posted comments in EFCS by doing a search in ECFS under proceeding number 13-184.

In 2015 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) initiated the five-year Category Two budget test program which established a per student/per school five-year funding allocation to help schools purchase equipment and services necessary to distribute the Internet on a school campus, commonly known as internal connections or WiFi.

USAC has announced the USAC annual fall applicant trainings. The two-day sessions, available to attendees free of charge, start with an optional half-day afternoon session targeted to beginners followed by a full-day training that includes separate breakout sessions for beginners and for more advanced users.

The Program Integrity Assurance (PIA) reviewers are working diligently to keep the application review process moving quickly in an effort to fund as many applications as possible prior to September 1, 2019. It is important to be aware of the option to place the review of your FCC Form 471 on hold using the summer deferral option since we are now nearing the time of year when many schools will have limited personnel available.

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) issued the first wave of funding commitments for Funding Year 2019 on April 27, 2019. In the first wave, USAC approved 1,675 funding requests for over 1,000 of California’s school and library applicants, for a total of 14% of all funding requested in California.

The Funding Year 2019 FCC Form 471 application window closed March 27. While the 2019 E-rate program cap was set by the Federal Communications Commission at $4.151 billion, the total demand as of the close of the window was reported by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) as $2.896 billion, well below the cap.