FCC Grants E-Rate Relief to Pribilof School District

After a series of errors associated with the Universal Service Administrative Company’s (USAC’s) roll-out of the ERate Productivity Center (EPC), the web-based account and application management portal for the E-Rate program, Pribilof School District (St. Paul Island, Alaska) filed its application for funding and its subsequent waiver request after the applicable deadlines. Now the Federal Communications Commission grants relief to Pribilof and gives an opportunity for relief to other similarly-situated applicants whose applications were rejected because of failures of the EPC platform during funding year 2016. The FCC also directs its Wireline Competition Bureau to initiate a process by which other funding year 2016 applicants would have 60 days to demonstrate that they experienced the same special circumstances as Pribilof and that a waiver would be in the public interest for their respective funding year 2016 E-Rate applications.