The Universal Service Administration Company (USAC) officially announced to the FCC in late July that it has identified additional monies to fund Funding Year 2010 E-rate Priority Two (internal connections and basic maintenance of internal connections) requests at the 80 percent discount level. This announcement came after a petition was filed by Funds For Learning, and subsequent public comment, that argued the USAC’s decision not to fund any requests at the 80 percent discount level was potentially detrimental to some of the nation’s most impoverished communities. After the comment period closed, there was no public communication on the topic until USAC notified the FCC that it had the funds available to satisfy FY2010 P2 requests at the 80 percent level.
According to a Funds For Learning analysis, the decision to fund down to the 80 percent discount band impacts more than 1,400 applicants and 870 service providers, and could result in nearly $280 million in new E-rate funding commitments for FY2010.
