E-Rate for FY 2025:

Wave 24 of Funding Commitment Decision Letters (“FCDL”s) for FY 2025 was released on Tuesday, September 30th, for $14.7 million.  Total funding for FY 2025 is $2.08 billion.  Currently, USAC has funded 90.0% of submitted applications, representing 65.9% of the dollars requested.

Cybersecurity Pilot Program:

The Form 471 application window for the Cybersecurity Pilot Program closed on September 15, 2025.  Total pilot funding is capped at $200 million for 690 applicants.  PIA review of Pilot applications has begun.

Unsurprisingly, the FCC did as expected last week in its September Open Meeting to remove E‑Rate eligibility for school bus Wi-Fi and hotspot services.  In two 2:1 contentious votes, the FCC passed a Declaratory Ruling to make bus Wi-Fi ineligible and an Order on Reconsideration to also end hotspot eligibility.*

What was a bit surprising was that Chairman Carr’s pre-meeting pronouncements about the illegality of these two services were barely evident in the meeting itself and in the resulting FCC actions.  Instead, the basis for both decisions referred to the “best reading” of Section 254 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, effectively invoking a reinterpretation of eligibility applying only to FY 2025, for which no funding had been awarded, and to future funding years.  The eligibility of bus Wi-Fi services for FY 2024, which have already been funded, was addressed solely in footnote 2 of the Declaratory Ruling in which the Commission stated that “we do not intend to apply it [the new interpretation] to previously requested and granted funding requests for FY 2024.”

In summary, therefore, here is the situation:

Upcoming Dates:

FCC and the Government Shutdown:

With the shutdown of the government effective October 1st, most of the FCC’s normal operations were suspended (see Plan for Orderly Shutdown Due to Lapse of Congressional Appropriation).  As per the Plan, the FCC was operating during the morning that day with time to post the following five important E-Rate documents:

FCC 25-62  Hotspot Order on Reconsideration
FCC 25-63  Bus Wi-Fi Declaratory Ruling
DA 25-874  Streamlined Decisions of September 2025
DA 25-920  Amended ESL for FY 2025
DA 25-921  Draft ESL for FY 2026

Four general shutdown considerations should be noted:

• The FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS”) will remain available to the public.  From an E-Rate perspective, this means that comments on the draft ESL for FY 2026, due October 15th, can be filed during the shutdown.  The same applies to the filing of appeals and waivers.
• The FCC’s Daily Digest will remain available (probably with less news than usual).
• Normal filing deadlines (e.g., appeals and waivers) during the shutdown are extended to the next business day after the resumption of normal operations.
• Comment and filing deadlines occurring after the resumption of operations (e.g., the ESL comment or reply comment deadlines) are not being automatically extended.

Most importantly, for most E-Rate applicants and suppliers, USAC has announced that it will remain open during the government shutdown, with its staff and customer support centers maintaining regular business hours.

Eligible Services Lists for FY 2025 (as amended) and FY 2026:

A draft of the Eligible Services List (“ESL”) for the upcoming funding year is normally released for comment in the July timeframe.  That did not occur this year for the obvious reason that the FCC had not yet resolved the eligibility of school bus Wi-Fi and hotspot services, which it has now done (see above).  As a result, the FCC released two versions of the ESL last week, namely:

• An amended version of the ESL for FY 2025 retroactively eliminating the eligibility of school bus Wi-Fi and hotspots.  Comments on the amended ESL were not requested.
• A draft version of the ESL for FY 2026, noting at the outset the removal of eligibility of bus Wi-Fi and hotspots from the earlier amended ESL.  What is new in the ESL for FY 2026 are proposals to redefine the distinction and treatment of Basic Maintenance of Internal Connections (“BMIC”) and Managed Internal Broadband Services (“MIBS”) which have often confused applicants.

Comments on the draft ESL are due October 15th.  Reply comments are due October 30th.

FCC Streamlined Decisions:

The FCC issued another set of “streamlined,” precedent-based appeals and waivers on September 30th.   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 (E-Rate) or Docket 21-93 (ECF).

In September’s streamlined decisions (DA 25-874), the FCC:

1. E-Rate Dismissed:
   1. Three Requests for Review or Waiver dismissed as moot where USAC had already approved the underlying funding requests.
   2. Seven Requests for Review or Waiver dismissed for failure to comply with the Commission’s basic filing requirements.
   3. Seven Petitions for Reconsideration failing to identify any reasons warranting reconsideration.
   4. Two Petitions for Reconsideration filed more than 30 days after the date of the decision.
2. E-Rate Granted:
   1. One Request for Waiver where the applicant demonstrated extraordinary circumstances warranting an invoice rule waiver.
   2. One Request for Waiver where the service provider had been unable to file a timely Form 473 SPAC.
   3. One Petition for Reconsideration for a late filed application due to circumstances beyond the applicant’s control.
   4. One Petition for Reconsideration finding that an issue on appeal “should have been resolved with USAC before the petitioner resorted to filing an appeal.”
   5. One Petition for Reconsideration granting a waiver of a special construction service delivery deadline.
   6. One Request for Waiver for a late-filed appeal or waiver submitted only a few days late.
   7. One Request for Waiver for a late-filed Form 471 due to circumstances beyond the applicant’s control.
   8. Two Requests for Waiver for late-filed Form 471s filed more than 30 days late due serious illness.
   9. Two Requests for Waiver for late Form 471s filed within 14 days of the close of the window.
   10. One Request for Review for a late-filed Form 486.
   11. Six Requests for Review and/or Waiver for ministerial and/or clerical errors involving misidentified service providers.
   12. Four Requests for Waiver for ministerial and/or clerical errors involving invoicing errors.
   13. Two Requests for Waiver involving permissible implementations delays.
   14. One Petition for Reconsideration of a late-filed appeal.
   15. One Request for Waiver granted after reconsideration of the Bureau’s own decision on the adequacy of sufficient documentation to determine eligibility.
   16. Two Requests for Waiver for the unintentional cancelation of an FRN.
   17. One Request for Waiver on an invoice deadline extension request based on a USAC decision issued after the invoice filing deadline.
   18. One Request for Review and/or Waiver involving a USAC invoice interpretation error.
   19. Six Requests for Waiver of the special construction service delivery deadline.
3. E-Rate Partially Granted:
   1. One Request for Review directing USAC to reassess an applicant’s funding requests after ineligible services are removed.
4. E-Rate Denied:
   1. One Request for Waiver for failure to satisfy the Red-Light Rule.
   2. One Request for Review involving ineligible services.
   3. Nineteen Requests for Waiver for late-filed Form 471 applications.
   4. Three Requests for Waiver for late-filed invoice deadline extension requests.
   5. Three Requests for Review and/or Waiver for relying on a Form 470 that did not seek bids for services later requested.
   6. Sixteen Requests for Waiver for untimely filed appeals or waiver requests.
5. Cybersecurity Pilot Denied:
   1. One Request for Waiver for a late-filed Form 484 Part 1.