The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) and Office of Managing Director (OMD) have deferred changes to the FCC Form 470 to funding year (FY) 2022 to allow E-Rate participants (mainly schools and libraries) to continue to focus their resources on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. FCC Form 470 is used by E-Rate participants to solicit bids from service providers for E-Rate eligible services. The WCB and OMD had planned on possible changes to the Form 470’s drop-down menu options, detailed in an October 2019 Public Notice, but have now decided that such changes should not be implemented for this upcoming year’s form as to avoid confusion. The WCB and OMD sent a letter to the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to explain the decision and offer guidance on processing this funding year’s E-Rate applications. The Commission anticipates that USAC will release the FY 2021 Form 470 on July 1, 2020.
