FAQs

You can file an FCC Form 470 for FY2025 now. The FCC Form 470 for FY2025 became available on September 19, 2024.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a detailed form of solicitation for equipment and services that provides any additional details necessary for potential bidders to respond. Program applicants may issue RFPs in addition to filing the FCC Form 470. An RFP may be known by a variety of names, for example, an Invitation for Bids (IFB) or Request for Quotes (RFQ). In most instances, RFPs are not specifically required as part of the E-Rate program, but you must issue one if it is required by FCC rules or by your state or local competitive bidding or procurement rules. If you are issuing an RFP and/or one or more RFP documents, you are required to upload those documents to your FCC Form 470. Applicants should make sure their latest RFP is available for a full 28 days before selecting a service provider.

The 28-day waiting period starts the calendar day (including weekends and holidays) you certify your FCC Form 470. The day you certify the form is day one. For example, if you certify on 1/1/2024, your Allowable Contract Date is 1/29/2024. The Allowable Contract Date (ACD) is the earliest date on which an applicant can sign a contract for contracted services or enter into an arrangement for tariffed (T) or month-to-month (MTM) services with a service provider. The ACD can be found in the Receipt Notification Letter posted on your News tab in EPC. The letter is posted shortly after you certify your FCC Form 470.

• To assist applicants and ensure they meet their 28-day minimum, EPC calculates the date when their 28-day waiting period ends.
• Applicants now have the ability to add a new RFP to any non-cancelled FCC Form 470 in EPC. In doing so they are prompted to answer the substantial change question. If they answer yes, then the ACD is automatically recalculated. See the FCC Form 470 Allowable Contract Date Changes slides in E-Rate Program Overview 2024 Applicant and Service Provider Training presentation.

• Remember, the 28-day waiting period is a minimum requirement. You can wait longer than 28 days.
• For more information and to view the ACD infographic, please visit the 28-Day Waiting Period page.

You can make the following changes to a certified FCC Form 470:

• Edit the nickname you created for your form.
• Change the main contact person on the form.
• Edit the technical contact person you identified on the form.
• Add an RFP document.
  • For FY2025, users can now upload an RFP document to any non-canceled Form 470, even if that Form 470 did not originally have an RFP. This grants applicants more flexibility if they need to make a change to their form.

• Navigate to the form in EPC. You can do this in two ways:
  • Go to the bottom of your landing page and search for and locate your form using the search criteria provided, or
  • Click the Records tab, choose FCC Forms 470, and use the search criteria provided to locate your form.
• Choose Related Actions from the menu.
• Click the link for the action you want to take from the menu.

We strongly recommend updating the entities in your EPC entity profile before you start a form. CSC can help you create entities, add and remove entities, and create annexes as needed. If you do this work before you submit and certify your FCC Form 470, the number of entities should be correct.

However, if your entity count is still not correct, you can add an RFP document to your form to explain the discrepancy (for example, if services are delivered to annexes that have a different address, but EPC did not count them as separate entities).

You may not be sure exactly where on the FCC Form 470 to list particular equipment or services. If they appear to fit into more than one category of service or service type, you should:

• List the equipment or service under all of the categories or service types where it fits, and
• Provide a detailed explanation of the services you are requesting in the narrative field of the FCC Form 470 and/or your RFP or RFP document.

No. There are some limited situations where applicants do not need to submit and certify an FCC Form 470:

• If you have a multi-year contract that is still in effect and the costs/services are still within the terms of the establishing FCC Form 470. However, you do need to file a new FCC Form 471 each funding year and use the prior supporting FCC Form 470.
• Commercially Available Business class Internet Option (CABIO) Category 1 (C1) services are exempt from the FCC Form 470 posting requirement if they meet certain requirements.
• Category Two (C2) equipment or services requested by libraries totaling a pre-discount cost of $3,600 or less annually per library are exempt from the FCC Form 470 posting requirement if they meet certain requirements.

Yes. If you are receiving services under tariff or on a month-to-month basis, you must file an FCC Form 470 each year.
You do not have to file an FCC Form 470 if:

• You are under a multi-year contract that covers your services for the upcoming funding year.
• You have a contract with voluntary extensions, and you and your service provider agree to exercise an extension that covers your services for the upcoming funding year.
• You order a commercially available, business-class internet access service that meets specific requirements.

The clearest way to proceed is to submit and certify a new FCC Form 470 and include all of the services you want on that form and its associated RFP and/or RFP documents.

You may also attach one or more RFP documents to your existing form to add the services that were omitted under a particular category of service. Keep in mind that the addition of those services will probably be a substantial change, and you must restart your 28-day waiting period from the date you add the document to your FCC Form 470. For FY2025, if you are making a substantial change, the allowable contract date will automatically update in EPC to extend by 28 days. If you are unsure whether adding a new service is a substantial change, err on the side of caution and restart the 28-day waiting period.

A third option is to submit and certify a new FCC Form 470 that contains only the additional services. If you choose this option, be very clear whether you want bids that include all of the equipment and services in both FCC Forms 470 and if you are willing to accept separate bids for the services included on each form.

For more information on the FCC Form 470 and the competitive bidding process, you can refer to the following resources available on the USAC website:

• Applicant Step 1 – Competitive Bidding
• Applicant Step 2 – Selecting Service Providers
• Instructional videos on how to file the FCC Form 470.

Other guidance documents

• Competitive Bidding Infographic
• Eligible Services Overview
• Document Retention

It is possible that a project receives one or no bids. When that happens, you have some options. After waiting the 28 days, you can proactively solicit bids. If you are currently receiving service, you can consider a current bill as a bid response. However, you should confirm that your current provider is willing to continue to provide service and to verify the cost of that service for the upcoming funding year. If you only receive one bid, you can accept it if it’s cost effective. You should create a memo to document the situation.

Yes, but only if it is cost-effective. If the service does not appear to be cost-effective based on your evaluation, you can solicit bids from other service providers and evaluate those bids as well.

If the bid is cost-effective, send yourself an email or create a memo to the file indicating that you only received one bid. Retain that email or memo and your evaluation with your other competitive bidding documentation.

No. You choose the evaluation factor(s) you will use to evaluate the bids you receive. You can choose as many or as few factors as you like.

You must include the price of the equipment and services that are eligible for E-Rate discounts as an evaluation factor, and that price factor must be weighted more heavily than any other single factor in your evaluation.

You can refer to the USAC website for guidance on constructing an evaluation. That guidance also includes a sample bid evaluation matrix.

As a service provider, you should use the FCC Form 470 tool to search and view certified FCC Form 470 service requests.

Another tool you can use is the Open Data platform. It allows users to view, filter, and search for FCC Forms 470 and extract a variety of data about posted FCC Forms 470 such as the scope of the work, the category of service requested, geographic location, applicant type, and other information.

Once you find a request on which you want to bid, review the FCC Form 470 carefully, especially the narrative sections. Look for any attachments or Request for Proposals, or “RFP documents.” Applicants who have specific requirements on preparing and submitting bids should provide that information there.

If there are no specific requirements provided, contact the contact person (or the technical contact person, if one is identified) for any additional information. Do not submit questions or bids directly to USAC.

Yes, you may submit a bid after the Allowable Contract Date unless the applicant’s requirements state otherwise. However, many applicants may select a service provider on the Allowable Contract Date, and applicants are not required to consider bids received after they have selected a service provider.

To avoid confusion, applicants are encouraged to include a date when bids are due or will no longer be considered.  Service providers are also encouraged to submit bids within 28 calendar days after an FCC Form 470 is posted as well.

Unresponsive Bids, “SPAM” Bids and “Robobids.” All bids received should be retained during the competitive bidding process. Disqualification factors can be applied to bids received that do not meet minimum bid requirements, do not include site- or project-specific details, and/or are not responsive to the applicant’s requests. Applicants may include language in their FCC Form 470 narrative or request for proposal (RFP), such as “SPAM and/or robotic responses will not be considered valid bid responses and will be disqualified from consideration.” By doing this, applicants can disqualify bids based on this factor. The decision to disqualify any non-responsive bids should also be memorialized and retained to demonstrate compliance with the E-Rate competitive bidding rules.