The following is a summary of E-rate news for the week of December 21, 1998. Official SLC news appears in the "What's New!" section of the SLC's web site.

• The third wave of Funding Commitment Decisions Letters was released by the SLC on Monday, December 21^st. This was a small wave representing 1,167 decisions aggregating about $25 million in commitments. Again, no internal connections below the 90% discount level were approved.

In total, the SLC has now released about 7,400 FCD letters, representing decisions on almost 25% of the 30,000⁺ Form 471 applications being processed. Because many of the early decisions are on smaller and less complicated applications, E-Rate Central estimates that less than 10-15% of the total funds and related FRNs have been committed so far. The remaining waves should be much larger.

New York State schools and libraries have received aggregate commitments of just over $13 million in the first three waves.

The fourth wave is currently scheduled to be released on December 30^th. For the first time, this wave may include decisions on applications with requests for internal connection discounts below the 50% level. Unfortunately, as the SLC announced last week, the internal connection portions of these applications will be marked "Unfunded" due to the lack of funding under the FCC's priority allocation scheme.

• Tips on completing a Form 470 for the next funding period have been posted on the SLC's web site. A separate document is also available listing Minimum Processing Standards. A Form 470 not meeting these standards will be returned to the applicant for correction, possibly jeopardizing the applicant's ability to complete the application process within the window period.

The Form 470 tips indicate that properly submitted forms will be acknowledged by the SLC. This portion of the tip contains one small typo, corrected in the following paragraph (correction underlined):

• The SLC also posted tips on completing the Form 486 and the Form 472 (BEAR). A clarification for filing for discounts on prepaid services is also included.

The tips make it clear that schools and libraries will not be penalized for failing to file a Form 486 within the 5-day turnaround period (after receiving a FCD letter) occurring during the holidays. The tips also confirm advice (previously provided informally) to first wave recipients that they have an option of filing one set of BEAR forms for full 1998 retroactive discounts (rather than one set by 12/31/98 for the first nine months and a second set by 1/31/99 for the last three months).

The clarification on discounts for prepaid services includes a table showing which retroactive discounts can and cannot be requested on a Form 472 based on various combinations of when the service was delivered and when payment was made for said service. One combination not included (applicable to Internet users paying in advance for the 1998-99 year) is service delivered 7/1/98 - 6/30/99 and paid for in calendar 1998. In this case, we have been advised by the SLC that an applicant can file a Form 472 covering the full prepayment for the 1998-99 year.