Acting expeditiously on a request submitted by T-Mobile USA, Inc., the FCC granted a limited waiver (DA 23-669) to extend the invoice deadlines of ECF Window 1 and 2 FRNs, many of which had a deadline of August 29th, until October 30th.
Invoice deadlines for ECF have always been tighter than for E-rate. The ECF rule has been — and generally remains — that invoices must be filed within 60 days of service delivery dates or of FCDL and RFCDL dates, whichever are later. The reason that so many FRNs had August 29th invoice deadlines was that the regular Service Delivery Date for Window 1 and 2 commitments was June 30, 2023 — 60 days prior to August 29th. The FCC’s decision to extend all these invoice deadlines to at least October 30th was due, in part, to the recognition that it would ease the burden on schools as they began opening for the new school year.
The following two key points regarding this limited invoice extension should be noted:
- The FCC’s Order does not change any Service Delivery Deadlines (“SDDs”). The normal SDD for Window 1 and 2 commitments was June 30, 2023. The SDD for late commitments or approved post-commitment changes is 180 days after the FCDL or RFCDL date, but not to exceed June 30, 2024.
- The invoice deadline extension applies only to those FRNs that had previous deadlines from August 29th (the most common case) to October 29th. Existing invoice deadlines of October 30, 2023, or later, remain unchanged.
USAC has not yet put out an announcement of this invoice deadline extension, but we would not be surprised to see an ECF Program Newsletter including the topic issued later this week.
Warning: It is likely to take time for USAC to update its tools, databases, and templates to reflect the revised October 30th deadline. As of last Friday, for example, USAC’s “New!” ECF Invoice Deadline Tool, launched on June 9th, was still showing the 08/29/2023 invoice deadline for all affected FRNs.
Applicants should also be aware that boilerplate language in USAC’s Revised Funding Decision Commitment Letters (“RFCDLs”) may not reflect current deadlines. The decision section of a recent RFCDL, approving a change in device type, correctly calculated the new service delivery and invoice deadline dates but continued to show the following outdated text in the Rationale section:
The deadline for the service delivery date for all requests for equipment, other non-recurring services, and recurring services submitted during the first and second Emergency Connectivity Fund Program application filing windows has been updated to 6/30/2023 per FCC Order DA 22-176.