A.

Funding Commitments for FY2006 and FY2005

B.

ABCs of E-rate Training Update

C.

Outreach for Selective Review and Form 470 Numbers

D.

Online BEAR Update

E.

Invoicing Update

F.

Other

G.

General Questions Received by E-mail

1. There has recently been an incredible increase in the price of raw materials, specifically copper wiring, that is certainly affecting many Service Providers participating in the E-Rate program. Considering the long timeframe between estimating pricing for these projects and when the funding commitment decision is made (for Internal Connections), are there any concessions the SLD is willing to make to assist in alleviating some of the cost burden put upon us?

If we estimate these jobs at a much higher rate at the time of the e-rate application to account for price increases (that often times cannot be predicted), we may run a serious risk of not being awarded the project because of price and also not being considered "cost effective" by the SLD.

Some of the projects we are dealing with now were quoted to the customer back in the fall of 2004 and just recently received funding approval (approximately 15 months later!). We are now faced with losing profitability on these projects because of the significant increase in cost.

We realize that it is not SLD practice to increase a funding request after the application is submitted; but are there special circumstances in which this could be considered?

2. If a school is approved for a pbx and the school does not have internet connections, what should it do in terms of CIPA certification on the 486? It doesn't need filtering and therefore doesn't have it but that is not one of the options.

3. This is not a question but a suggestion for those on the last service provider conference call who want to have more than one person at their company receive electronic remittance statements. If you are using Outlook, the person who receives the notifications (who is on the Form 498) can set up a rule so that whenever they receive an e-mail from "disbursements@bcd.universalservice.org", it is automatically forwarded to whomever they want to designate. Go to "Rules and Alerts" under the Outlook Tools menu. We have set it up this way so that when the general contact receives a remittance notification, there are two other people in the company who also receive the information. This is a fix until (if) the Form 498 is ever modified to designate more than one person.