The FCC has released a draft version of the Eligible Services List (ESL) for E-rate Funding Year 2010 and has established a timeline for the public to comment of the draft list. The eligibility of most items will not change if the draft is approved without modification. The items that could change are:
Additions to Eligibility:
- Ethernet as an eligible digital transmission technology
- Interconnected Voice Over IP (VoIP) services can be discounted in the Telecommunications Services and Internet Access categories
- User licenses for Interconnected VoIP systems are eligible as software in Internal Connections
- Wireless LAN controllers are eligible in Internal Connections
- Virtualization software that would otherwise be eligible as server (e-mail, web, DNS, etc.) software
Clarifications:
- Text messaging is an eligible telephone service component
- Password-protected web pages are eligible as part of a web hosting service (this will memorialize the policy change recently enacted by USAC that expands web hosting eligibility)
- Warranties priced separately from the purchase of equipment are eligible
- Specifying that the following products/services are not eligible: broadcast messaging; power distribution units; video-on-demand servers; softphones; interactive white boards; and e-mail archiving beyond the storage component that allows current e-mails that have been received to be viewed by the user.
Comments on the proposed changes to the ESL for FY 2010 are due by June 23, 2009 and can be submitted on paper to the FCC or electronically through the Commission’s Electronic Comment Filing System at http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/ecfs. Reply comments are due by June 30, 2009.
