E-Rate for FY 2025:

Wave 7 of funding commitment decision letters for FY 2025 was released on Thursday, June 5th, for $42.8 million.  Total funding is now $1.23 billion.  Currently, USAC has funded 64.1% of submitted applications, representing 38.2% of the dollars requested.

E-Rate for FY 2024:

Wave 58 for FY 2024 was released on Friday, June 6th, for $1.30 million (only three FCDLs).  Total funding is $2.70 billion.  Currently, USAC has funded 98.5% of submitted applications, representing 94.2% of the dollars requested.

Cybersecurity Pilot Program – Application Window:

The Form 471 application window for the Cybersecurity Pilot Program opened on March 18th and will close on September 15th, 2025.  Total Pilot funding is capped at $200 million for 703¹ applicants.

The FCC released a Public Notice (DA 25-471) last week setting the new Category Two budget parameters for the next five-year cycle affecting FY 2026-2030.  The new multipliers and funding floors are up 20.7%, reflecting cumulative inflation over the past five years.  The new factors, shown in the table below,² are slightly higher than those that we had projected in our newsletter of March 10th.  All other aspects of the Category 2 budgets remain unchanged.

FCC Commissioners, Geoffrey Starks and Nathan Simington, released separate statements last week announcing that their last day on the Commission would be Friday, June 6th.  Commissioner Stark’s announcement was not surprising; he had previously indicated that he would resign before the next FCC open meeting scheduled for June 26th.  Commissioner Simington’s resignation, however, had not been publicly telegraphed and comes as a bit of a shock.

As of this week, therefore, there are only two Commissioners: Chairman Brendan Carr (Republican) and Anna Gomez (Democratic).  The most significant aspect of this development is that, under the Communications Act of 1934, the FCC needs three Commissioners to have a quorum.  Without a quorum — subject to one possible exception³ — the FCC cannot take any Commission-level actions.  From an E-Rate perspective, this could be a plus or negative in the short term with respect to hotspots and/or school bus Wi-Fi.

The addition of a third Commissioner, reestablishing a quorum, is currently pending with the Senate’s confirmation of Olivia Trusty.  Ms. Trusty has been nominated to the Commission by President Trump, has already been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee, but is still awaiting action by the full Senate.

Upcoming Dates:

FCC Streamlined Decisions:

The FCC issued another set of “streamlined,” precedent-based appeals and waivers last week.  As with past streamlined decisions, applicants facing similar problems to those addressed in these decisions may garner useful information by carefully reading the additional FCC explanations found in the footnotes.  The original appeal and/or waiver requests can be found online in the FCC’s Search for Filings under Docket 02-6.
Again, this month, the list of decisions is dominated by waivers requested for late-filed FY 2025 Form 471 applications.  Last month, as it has traditionally done, the FCC approved 492 waivers for applications submitted within two weeks of the deadline (see our newsletter of May 9th).  This month’s late-filed decisions were more diverse.  The FCC included another 290 waiver approvals for applications filed within the two-week window but denied eighty-eight waivers for applications filed more than two weeks late for which the applicants were unable to demonstrate excusable “special circumstances.”

The FCC did approve 26 post-two-week waivers that were considered “special circumstances.”  It is instructive to note why.  Here is the breakdown (with additional details in the footnotes):

• One waiver for “Circumstances Beyond Their Control.”⁴
• One waiver for a “Natural Disaster.”⁵
• Two waivers for Technical Issues.”⁶
• Sixteen waivers for “Unexpected Illness.”⁷
• Three waivers for “Serious Medical Condition.”⁸
• Two waivers for “School Reorganization.”⁹
• One waiver for a “Tribal Library.”¹⁰

In May’s other streamlined decisions (DA 25-433), the FCC:

1. E-Rate Dismissed:
   1. Two Requests for Waiver dismissed as moot where USAC had already taken the requested action.
   2. One Request for Waiver for failure to comply with the FCC’s basic filing requirements.
   3. One Request for Waiver deemed moot for a subsequently withdrawn FRN.
   4. One Request for Waiver dismissed to allow for an appeal to be filed with USAC.
2. E-Rate Granted:
   1. One Request for Review finding that USAC had incorrectly changed the category of service.
   2. Two Requests for Waiver of the invoice filing deadline citing extraordinary circumstances.
   3. One Request for Review of a discount rate calculation.
   4. Ten Requests for Review and/or Waiver (dated 2007-2010) of discount rates remanded to USAC.
   5. One Request for Review for service eligibility.
   6. One Request for Waiver granting additional time to respond to a USAC inquiry.
   7. Two Requests for Waiver for late-filed appeals or waivers submitted only a few days late or “within a reasonable period of time after receiving actual notice of mistake.”
   8. Two Requests for Waiver for ministerial and/or clerical errors.
   9. One Request for Review and/or Waiver for a potential conflict of interest for service provider involvement in the procurement process.  Importantly, the FCC found that the rule “does not prohibit an [applicant] from obtaining information on its current services from its existing service provider.”
   10. Two Requests for Waiver on service substitutions.
   11. One Request for Review related to a service provider’s SPIN change.
   12. Twelve Requests for Waiver based on USAC decisions issued after invoice deadlines.
   13. Two Requests for Waiver of the appeal filing deadline due to USAC errors.
   14. One Request for Waiver of the special construction service delivery deadline.
3. E-Rate Granted in Part:
   1. Two Requests for Review and/or Waiver remanded to USAC for the removal of ineligible costs.
4. E-Rate Denied:
   1. One Request (from 2012) for a blanket Waiver of filing deadlines without a showing of special circumstances.
   2. One Request for Review (from 2017) for failure to adhere to bid evaluation criteria.
   3. Ten Requests for Review and/or Waiver for improper service provider involvement in the preparation of applicant technology plans.  The FCC concluded that such assistance “can influence the products and services that should be requested.”
   4. One Request for Review showing no good cause for modifying the category of service.
   5. One Request for Waiver for relying on a Form 470 that did not seek bids on the types of E-Rate services later requested.
   6. One Request for Waiver (from 2010) of the Two-In-Five rule.
   7. Six Requests for Waiver for untimely filed appeals or waivers.