Wave 8 Funding for FY 2002
Wave 8 of Funding Year 2002 will be released on Tuesday, July 30. Total funding in this wave is approximately $45 million for almost 600 applications. The cumulative total for FY 2002 is now $686 million for 23,300 applications.
Funding is still being provided only for Priority One (telecommunications and Internet access) services. Applicants with discount rates below 80% are being told that their requests for Priority Two (internal connection) services will be denied due to insufficient funds.
A report from a USAC board meeting earlier in the week indicated that the SLD hopes to begin making internal connection commitments in late September. While the SLD would like to be able to fund 100% of all valid requests at the 90% discount level, the report indicated that the latest projections show only enough funds to meet 77% of the 90% discount band requests.
If full funding of the 90% discount band is not possible, the SLD would reduce all funding requests proportionally. As an example, if an applicant had requested funding on an internal connections project with a $10,000 pre-discount cost, and if only 77% of the band was being funded, then we would expect the SLD to reduce the pre-discount funding level to $7,700. The approved discount would therefore be limited to $6,830 (90% of 7,700) rather than $9,000 (90% of 10,000). An applicant, who is able to scale down the project size by 23% or more, would thereby receive full 90% funding, albeit on a lesser amount.
As promised last week, the SLD has added a slick new FRN data retrieval tool to its Web site. It is accessible through a new navigation button on the home page labeled "Data Requests" (see Open Data Search ). The tool permits a user to create a database query by funding year, state, type of service or applicant, discount level, SPIN, funding amount, application number, and/or FRN. Upon request, the system will then generate a customized tab-delimited data file that can be downloaded and imported into an Excel worksheet or other database program.
The new tool is particularly useful for users seeking specific information on a FRN or on groups of applicants or service providers. Specific application status information is available on the SLD Web site under "Application Status" in the "Apply Online" section (see Apply Online Area). Aggregate applicant funding data can be accessed, without having to download a data file, in the "Funding Commitments" section (see Funding Commitments).