A.

Funding Commitments

We plan to continue to issue funding commitments each week for FY2005 applications.  However, Wave 48 will be the last regular wave for FY2004. FY2004 waves will be run occasionally from this point forward, and will be designated by letters: 48A, 48B, 48C, and so on.

FY 2005

Wave 025 12/14/2005 $19.1 million
Wave 026 12/27/2005 $30.1 million
Wave 027 12/30/205 $13.1 million
Wave 028 1/6/2006 $14.1 million
Wave 029 1/10/2006 $7.1 million

FY 2004

Wave 045 12/13/2005 $5.8 million
Wave 046 12/21/2005 $5.1 million
Wave 047 12/29/2005 $43 thousand
Wave 048 1/4/2006 $379 thousand

B.

Internal Connections Commitments for FY2005

Commitments for Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance are being issued at the 90% discount level. Once the special Katrina window has closed, USAC will have a better understanding of the impact that Katrina applications will have on FY2005 demand.

C.

Upcoming Deadlines

• January 19, 2006 is the last day an applicant can POST a Form 470 for FY2006 to the USAC website, wait 28 days, and then — on the last day of the FY2006 Form 471 application filing window — evaluate bids received, choose a service provider, sign and date a contract (if applicable), and sign and submit a Form 471.
• January 26, 2006 is the last day that applicants directly affected by Hurricane Katrina can submit Service Substitution requests under the guidelines for Hurricane Katrina relief.
• January 30, 2006 is the last day to submit invoices for Internal Connections and Basic Maintenance FRNs with a September 30, 2005 deadline for delivery and installation.  (The calculated invoice deadline of January 28 falls on a Saturday.)

D.

USAC Website

USAC unveiled its redesigned website in mid-December 2005. If you have any comments on the new look and feel of the website, please submit them using the Website Feedback link at the bottom of any USAC webpage.

E.

Electronic Newsletter

Archived USAC News Briefs can be found on the Schools & Libraries News Briefs webpage under the Outreach and Training link.
We plan to send out a survey on the News Briefs in the near future.

Invoicing Update

Payments for the month of December totaled $127,042,780 against requests for $175M. In total, 5,238 invoices were processed for 1,145 service providers. This represented 18,470 lines in December with 82% being completed within 30 days. Only 7% of the lines paid were in process over 90 days.

Because of difficulties in gathering information during the holiday period, there are now 600 in-process lines over 90 days. With only 4,427 lines in process, those over 90 days comprise less than 14% of the total.

USAC is launching a new initiative to improve the invoicing process. BEAR Forms will now pass through processing without payment when minimum processing standards have not been met. For instance, if the FRN and Form 471 number are not correct on a line of a BEAR Form, that line would pass zero (not be paid) and the BEAR Form would continue through processing. Previously, the BEAR Form would be held until the applicant could be contacted and the error explained. We will provide more information on the website about any other changes as well as updated references to the invoice error codes. Invoices that are rejected for these reasons may be re-submitted after the errors have been corrected.

When you are inquiring about the status of a submitted invoice, please use the Submit a Question tool. In the “Topic Inquiry” area, choose ”Invoicing – General Inquiries” and then “What is the approval status for an invoice I submitted?” so that your inquiry can go directly to our Invoicing Team.

Other

USAC is already processing 2006 applications, even though the window has not yet closed. The sooner we have all parts of the application — including the Item 21 Attachment — the sooner we can begin to process the application.

All written questions to be answered during a service provider call and included in the call notes should be submitted by the close of business on the Friday prior to the call. Questions sent in after that date will be held for the next service provider call.

Service providers who request new SPINs usually receive them within 2-3 weeks of submission. Applicants can contact the Client Service Bureau for help when filing a Form 471 if they do not know their service provider’s SPIN or a SPIN has not yet been issued. Remember, though, that service providers must have a valid SPIN before USAC can issue a funding commitment.

When filling out an online Item 21 attachment, applicants can indicate sales tax in the line item “Other.”

H.

General Questions Received by E-mail

Q. Nextel does offer Blackberry plans as a bundle with cell and as an add on to a cell plan. With the bundled plan we cannot separate out a specific charge amount for the Blackberry service so in a case when they have a bundle plan, the applicant becomes ineligible given the current guidelines. If they choose the unbundled then we can make just the cell eligible and not the price plan for the Blackberry.

Should an applicant put in 2 FRNs? One for Cell and one for Blackberry?

A reference to 'auditable system' was made on the Dec 7th call - what is this and how does it apply to the Blackberry's?

I have many more questions as do my customers, your applicants, and the consultants that are trying to assist in completing the 470. Waiting for more guidance until the next call is going to be cutting it to close to the deadlines for filing correctly or revising a request and going out to BID. If possible can an update in the weekly newsletter with more in-depth information be posted?

A. The guidance USAC has previously issued indicates that a Blackberry or other similar service is eligible only when providing internet access on eligible school or library property. An auditable system would have to differentiate between on-site internet access (eligible) and offsite internet access (ineligible).

If applicants cannot cost allocate between eligible and ineligible uses, the entire service would be deemed ineligible.

Q. The new online Form 471 is not letting us key in a non-recurring (one time charge) if the category is maintenance. This needs to be corrected as forcing the one time charges to be entered as monthly, recurring charges will result in big problems for service providers and SLD invoicing next year. For example, Cisco Smartnet maintenance for a 2500 series router costs approximately $275.00 per year. The Cisco reseller charges the annual maintenance (warranty) fee one time. If we have to show it as a monthly, recurring charge, we would show $22.91/month. The service provider would then have to bill SLD the school's portion each month and go through the invoicing process 12 times for the one time charge of $275.00. This will cause an undue burden on everyone involved. Please discuss this issue and let us know if this will be fixed for the FY 2006 filing window.

A. The 2006 Eligible Services List description for Basic Maintenance – page 57 of the PDF version — indicates in the header that “All requests in this category will be treated as recurring services with services to be delivered within the July 1 to June 30 Funding Year.”

Costs in the category of Basic Maintenance are therefore not treated as non-recurring. An applicant can divide the annual amount by 12 and put that charge in the monthly amount, or USAC can change a non-recurring entry to the appropriate recurring entry during application review.

However, USAC does not require that invoices be submitted monthly just because a service is designated as recurring. Invoices should clearly indicate the period during which services were delivered.