The third Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) filing window closed on May 13, 2022. The total ECF requested amount for application window 1 through window 3 totaled $8.5 billion which surpassed the $7.1 billion earmarked for ECF program. Since the demand for window 3 applications was higher than the available funds, the FCC recently indicated that applications will be prioritized to fund schools and libraries with the greatest need first.
A quick analysis of the requested ECF funds indicates that schools and libraries requested over $6 billion worth of connected devices to support remote learning needs. Laptop requests totaled over $4.94 billion followed by tablets, which totaled over $1.01 billion.
