The very first FY2017 funding commitments were released this morning. Congratulations to those who were in this earlier than anticipated funding wave number 1.
Funding commitment waves are generally issued once a week for current funding years. A wave contains Funding Commitment Decision Letters (FCDLs) for all FCC Forms 471 for which USAC is ready to issue a funding decision since the last wave. Both applicants and service providers are notified of the decisions.
All FCDLs will be issued in EPC. As funding waves are released, the FCDLs for applicants who have a commitment in the wave will show up in the
Notifications section of their EPC landing page as well as in the
News feed.
Applicants are notified weekly of each wave, shortly after the wave runs. The contact person listed on the FCC Form 471 will receive an email from the EPC system notifying him or her that an FCDL has been issued for a specific application. If you filed multiple FCC Forms 471 and more than one is included in the same wave, the contact person will receive an email for each form. I will also be sending an email with instructions to each applicant included in a funding wave.
To view an FCDL:- The contact person should click on the link in the email from the EPC system to log in to EPC and go to their organization's landing page (or just go to the EPC login page in any browser)
- In the Notifications section of the organization's landing page, choose the notification type "FCDL" and funding year "2017," then click "Generate Notification" in the right-column of the FCDL you would like to view
- The text will change to "View Notification"
- At this point, any user can click "View Notification" to be taken to the FCDL in the organization's News tab
- Applicants will see the short text of the FCDL and three attachments at the bottom:
- An FCDL supplement that contains related program information – for example, how to appeal a funding decision and the obligation to pay the non-discount portion of the cost of the services. Note that the identical document will be attached to all FCDLs.
- A link to a *.CSV file, which contains a simple table of the data about the commitment – the approved discount rate, whether or not the FRN was approved, the FCDL comment, and so on – that in the past would have been in the funding commitment report in the paper version of the FCDL. This table will have one FRN per row and will include all FRNs that were listed on the FCC Form 471. This file can be opened with any spreadsheet program.
- A link to the FCC Form 471.