FCC Grants Alaska School District E-rate Relief Due to EPC Problems, Invites Other Requests
The FCC granted a waiver to an Alaskan E-rate applicant and invited others to seek relief due to similar application processing problems. Pribilof School District of St. Paul Island sought more than $300,000 in E-rate support to provide satellite internet…
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access to 65 low-income students on two islands in the Bering Sea. Following a "series of errors" in the Universal Service Administrative Co.'s rollout of the E-rate Productivity Center (EPC), "Pribilof filed its application for funding and its subsequent waiver request after the applicable deadlines," said a unanimous commission order in docket 02-6 Wednesday. "[W]e grant relief to Pribilof and give an opportunity for relief to other similarly situated applicants whose applications were rejected because of failures of the EPC platform during funding year 2016." It directed the Wireline Bureau to initiate a process giving other FY 2016 applicants 60 days "to demonstrate that they experienced the same special circumstances as Pribilof and that a waiver would be in the public interest." Commissioner Mike O'Rielly's said his "concern has been the misguided position that information provided by USAC on the EPC news feed constitutes notice to an applicant of a funding decision and sets the deadline to appeal the decision." He thanked Chairman Ajit Pai for making revisions "to clarify that items posted on the EPC news feed are merely informational in nature." He recommended the FCC "take the next available opportunity to codify a rule that any funding decision be communicated by letter and distributed directly to the applicant’s designated contact(s), preferably by electronic means." Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel lauded the decision.