FCC Approves Full Funding for FY 2018; Wave 1 Coming Soon

April 20, 2018

Attached: FY2018-Demand-Estimate final

Last week USAC submitted their Funding Year 2018 “E-rate Demand Estimate” to the FCC, showing how much E-rate funding was requested in each category (copy attached).  For FY 2018, applicants requested a total of $2.77 billion (down from $3.2 billion in FY 2017), which includes estimated demand of $2.025 billion for Category 1 services and $745 million for Category equipment/services.  Because FY 2018 demand is less than the E-rate funding cap, the FCC has approved the full funding of all eligible C1 and C2 requests.

I know that many applicants have received PIA inquiries, and others have 471 statuses marked “Wave Ready” without receiving any PIA inquiries.  If you want to see whether your application is likely to be included in Wave 1, search for your Form 471 at the bottom of your EPC Landing Page, click on the Form 471 Application Number, then look at the top of the page for the 471 Status Bar to see if it shows “Wave Ready” status.

In PA, a total of $63,780,026 has been requested by PA schools, libraries and consortia for Funding Year 2018 (down about $5 million from FY 2017, mostly due to the phase out of voice).  Data Transmission/Internet requests increased by $5 million and Internal Connections requests decreased by $7 million.

I will provide details of Wave 1 as soon as they are released!

— Julie

Julie Tritt Schell
PA E-rate Coordinator
717-730-7133 – o
717-730-9060 – f
jtschell@comcast.net
www.e-ratepa.org