In its quarterly report to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) reported that approximately $500 million in unused funds from previous Funding Years could be used to supplement current and future requests for E-rate discounts. The amount of unused funds increased $150 million over the last quarterly report issued in October 2009. Based on the FCC’s Third Report and Order, the FCC can direct USAC to apply unused funds increase the amount of available funding for a funding year.
USAC reported the breakdown of unused funds by year as follows:
- FY 2005 – $75 million
- FY 2006 – $150 million
- FY 2007 – $275 million
The quarterly report also highlighted the number of potentially fundable applications they have left for each funding year as of December 31, 2009. The breakdown is as follows:
- 2001 – 2 potentially fundable applications
- 2002 – 2 potentially fundable applications
- 2003 – 5 potentially fundable applications
- 2004 – 39 potentially fundable applications
- 2005 – 61 potentially fundable applications
- 2006 – 99 potentially fundable applications
- 2007 – 211 potentially fundable applications
- 2008 – 521 potentially fundable applications
- 2009 – 4781 potentially fundable applications
