54.504—Requests for services.

(a) Competitive bid requirements. Except as provided in § 54.511(c), an eligible school, library, or consortium that includes an eligible school or library shall seek competitive bids, pursuant to the requirements established in this subpart, for all services eligible for support under §§ 54.502 and 54.503. These competitive bid requirements apply in addition to state and local competitive bid requirements and are not intended to preempt such state or local requirements.

(b) Posting of FCC Form 470. (1) An eligible school, library, or consortium that includes an eligible school or library seeking to receive discounts for eligible services under this subpart, shall submit a completed FCC Form 470 to the Administrator. FCC Form 470 shall include, at a minimum, the following information, to the extent applicable with respect to the services requested:

(i) The computer equipment currently available or budgeted for purchase for the current, next, or other future academic years, as well as whether the computers have modems and, if so, what speed modems;

(ii) The internal connections, if any, that the school or library has in place or has budgeted to install in the current, next, or future academic years, or any specific plans for an organized voluntary effort to connect the classrooms;

(iii) The computer software necessary to communicate with other computers over an internal network and over the public telecommunications network currently available or budgeted for purchase for the current, next, or future academic years;

(iv) The experience of, and training received by, the relevant staff in the use of the equipment to be connected to the telecommunications network and training programs for which funds are committed for the current, next, or future academic years;

(v) Existing or budgeted maintenance contracts to maintain computers; and

(vi) The capacity of the school's or library's electrical system in terms of how many computers can be operated simultaneously without creating a fire hazard.

(2) FCC Form 470 shall be signed by the person authorized to order telecommunications and other supported services for the eligible school, library, or consortium and shall include that person's certification under oath that:

(i) The schools meet the statutory definition of elementary and secondary schools found under section 254(h) of the Act, as amended in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, 20 U.S.C. 7801(18) and (38), do not operate as for-profit businesses, and do not have endowments exceeding $50 million;

(ii) The libraries or library consortia eligible for assistance from a State library administrative agency under the Library Services and Technology Act of 1996 do not operate as for-profit businesses and whose budgets are completely separate from any school (including, but not limited to, elementary and secondary schools, colleges, and universities).

(iii) All of the individual schools, libraries, and library consortia receiving services are covered by:

(A) Individual technology plans for using the services requested in the application; and/or

(B) Higher-level technology plans for using the services requested in the application; or

(C) No technology plan needed because application requests basic local and/or long distance service and/or voicemail only.

(iv) The technology plan(s) has/have been approved by a state or other authorized body; the technology plan(s) will be approved by a state or other authorized body; or no technology plan needed because the applicant is applying for voice mail, interconnected voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), or basic local, cellular, PCS, or long distance telephone service only.

(v) The services the applicant purchases at discounts will be used solely for educational purposes and will not be sold, resold, or transferred in consideration for money or any other thing of value.

(vi) Support under this support mechanism is conditional upon the school(s) and library(ies) securing access to all of the resources, including computers, training, software, maintenance, internal connections, and electrical connections necessary to use the services purchased effectively.

(vii) All bids submitted will be carefully considered and the bid selected will be for the most cost-effective service or equipment offering, with price being the primary factor, and will be the most cost-effective means of meeting educational needs and technology plan goals.

(3) The Administrator shall post each FCC Form 470 that it receives from an eligible school, library, or consortium that includes an eligible school or library on its website designated for this purpose.

(4) After posting on the Administrator's website an eligible school's, library's, or consortium's FCC Form 470, the Administrator shall send confirmation of the posting to the entity requesting service. That entity shall then wait at least four weeks from the date on which its description of services is posted on the Administrator's website before making commitments with the selected providers of services. The confirmation from the Administrator shall include the date after which the requestor may sign a contract with its chosen provider(s).

(c) Filing of FCC Form 471. An eligible school, library, or consortium that includes an eligible school or library seeking to receive discounts for eligible services under this subpart, shall, upon signing a contract for eligible services, submit a completed FCC Form 471 to the Administrator. A commitment of support is contingent upon the filing of FCC Form 471.

(1) FCC Form 471 shall be signed by the person authorized to order telecommunications and other supported services for the eligible school, library, or consortium and shall include that person's certification under oath that:

(iii) The entities listed on the FCC Form 471 application have secured access to all of the resources, including computers, training, software, maintenance, internal connections, and electrical connections, necessary to make effective use of the services purchased, as well as to pay the discounted charges for eligible services from funds to which access has been secured in the current funding year. The billed entity will pay the non-discount portion of the cost of the goods and services to the service provider(s).

(iv) All of the schools and libraries listed on the FCC Form 471 application are covered by:

(A) An individual technology plan for using the services requested in the application; and/or

(B) Higher-level technology plan(s) for using the services requested in the FCC Form 471 application; or

(v) Status of technology plan(s) has/have been approved; will be approved by a state or other authorized body; or no technology plan is needed because applicant is applying for basic local, cellular, PCS, and/or long distance telephone service and/or voicemail only.

(vi) The entities listed on the FCC Form 471 application have complied with all applicable state and local laws regarding procurement of services for which support is being sought.

(vii) The services the applicant purchases at discounts will be used solely for educational purposes and will not be sold, resold, or transferred in consideration for money or any other thing of value.

(viii) The entities listed in the application have complied with all program rules and acknowledge that failure to do so may result in denial of discount funding and/or recovery of funding.

(ix) The applicant understands that the discount level used for shared services is conditional, for future years, upon ensuring that the most disadvantaged schools and libraries that are treated as sharing in the service, receive an appropriate share of benefits from those services.

(x) The applicant recognizes that it may be audited pursuant to its application, that it will retain for five years any and all worksheets and other records relied upon to fill out its application, and that, if audited, it will make such records available to the Administrator.

(xi) All bids submitted were carefully considered and the most cost-effective bid for services or equipment was selected, with price being the primary factor considered, and is the most cost-effective means of meeting educational needs and technology plan goals.

(2) [Reserved]

(d) Mixed eligibility requests. If 30 percent or more of a request for discounts made in an FCC Form 471 is for ineligible services, the request shall be denied in its entirety.

(e) Rate disputes. Schools, libraries, and consortia including those entities, and service providers may have recourse to the Commission, regarding interstate rates, and to state commissions, regarding intrastate rates, if they reasonably believe that the lowest corresponding price is unfairly high or low.

(1) Schools, libraries, and consortia including those entities may request lower rates if the rate offered by the carrier does not represent the lowest corresponding price.

(2) Service providers may request higher rates if they can show that the lowest corresponding price is not compensatory, because the relevant school, library, or consortium including those entities is not similarly situated to and subscribing to a similar set of services to the customer paying the lowest corresponding price.

(f) Service substitution. (1) The Administrator shall grant a request by an applicant to substitute a service or product for one identified on its FCC Form 471 where:

(i) The service or product has the same functionality;

(ii) The substitution does not violate any contract provisions or state or local procurement laws;

(iii) The substitution does not result in an increase in the percentage of ineligible services or functions; and

(iv) The applicant certifies that the requested change is within the scope of the controlling FCC Form 470, including any associated Requests for Proposal, for the original services.

(2) In the event that a service substitution results in a change in the pre-discount price for the supported service, support shall be based on the lower of either the pre-discount price of the service for which support was originally requested or the pre-discount price of the new, substituted service.

(3) For purposes of this rule, the broad categories of eligible services (telecommunications service, Internet access, and internal connections) are not deemed to have the same functionality with one another.

(g) Mixed eligibility services. A request for discounts for a product or service that includes both eligible and ineligible components must allocate the cost of the contract to eligible and ineligible components.

(1) Ineligible components. If a product or service contains ineligible components, costs must be allocated to the extent that a clear delineation can be made between the eligible and ineligible components. The delineation must have a tangible basis, and the price for the eligible portion must be the most cost-effective means of receiving the eligible service.

(2) Ancillary ineligible components. If a product or service contains ineligible components that are ancillary to the eligible components, and the product or service is the most cost-effective means of receiving the eligible component functionality, without regard to the value of the ineligible component, costs need not be allocated between the eligible and ineligible components. Discounts shall be provided on the full cost of the product or service. An ineligible component is “ancillary” if a price for the ineligible component cannot be determined separately and independently from the price of the eligible components, and the specific package remains the most cost-effective means of receiving the eligible services, without regard to the value of the ineligible functionality.

(3) The Administrator shall utilize the cost allocation requirements of this subparagraph in evaluating mixed eligibility requests under § 54.504(d)(1).

(h) Filing of FCC Form 473. All service providers eligible to provide telecommunications and other supported services under this subpart shall submit annually a completed FCC Form 473 to the Administrator. FCC Form 473 shall be signed by an authorized person and shall include that person's certification under oath that:

(1) The prices in any offer that this service provider makes pursuant to the schools and libraries universal service support program have been arrived at independently, without, for the purpose of restricting competition, any consultation, communication, or agreement with any other offeror or competitor relating to those prices, the intention to submit an offer, or the methods or factors used to calculate the prices offered;

(2) The prices in any offer that this service provider makes pursuant to the schools and libraries universal service support program will not be knowingly disclosed by this service provider, directly or indirectly, to any other offeror or competitor before bid opening (in the case of a sealed bid solicitation) or contract award (in the case of a negotiated solicitation) unless otherwise required by law; and

(3) No attempt will be made by this service provider to induce any other concern to submit or not to submit an offer for the purpose of restricting competition.

[62 FR 32948, June 17, 1997, as amended at 62 FR 41304, Aug. 1, 1997; 63 FR 2129, Jan. 13, 1998; 63 FR 70572, Dec. 21, 1998; 68 FR 36942, June 20, 2003; 69 FR 6190, Feb. 10, 2004, 69 FR 55109, Sept. 13, 2004; 69 FR 59145, Oct. 4, 2004; 75 FR 17589, Apr. 7, 2010]

CFR

54.504—Requests for services.