The Schools and Libraries Division announced Aug. 17 that it would issue another $103 million worth of E-rate funding commitments for telecommunications services and Internet access for Year 4 of the program. Decisions on internal connections requests from applicants with discount rates of 85 percent or higher continue to be on hold until the SLD finishes reviewing more applications.
With the latest round of commitments, the third biweekly wave, the SLD has committed about 31 percent of the $2.25 billion that the Federal Communications Commission agreed to set aside for the schools and libraries program in the current year. With a total of $705 million committed so far, the SLD is about $200 million ahead of the pace it achieved last year through the first six weeks of commitments.
In its quarterly report to the FCC, filed on Aug. 2, the Universal Service Administrative Company projected that it would have about $49 million worth of support collected in Year 2 that would not be needed to cover that year. It said it would carry those funds forward for use in subsequent years, but provided no specifics.
