With the E-Rate filing deadline formally moved to May 26, school districts have four additional weeks to submit their applications.
The extension is good news for K-12 leaders who are still wading through the complicated paperwork, especially in light of the significant program changes that the Federal Communications Commission instituted in 2014. Those revisions included increased funding and the phasing out of some services and technologies.
Check out the charts below to see exactly which services and products are covered under Categories One and Two (formerly called Priorities One and Two), and then download the white paper, "Get Ready for E-Rate 2.0," for more helpful tips.
Category One
Eligible
|
Ineligible
|
|
Services
Digital transmission services and Internet access services, such as:
- Cable modem
- Digital subscriber line (DSL)
- DS-1 (T1), DS-3 (T3) and Fractional T1 and T3
- Ethernet
- Fiber (lit and dark)
- Multiprotocol label-switching (MPLS)
Voice services, such as:
- Voice over IP
- Local, long distance and 800 service
- Plain old telephone service (POTS)
- Wireless telephone service, including cellular voice (but excluding data and text messaging)
|
Services or Components
- 900/976 call blocking
- Custom calling services
- Direct inward dialing
- Directory assistance charges
- Email
- Inside wire maintenance plans
- Paging
- Text messaging
- Voicemail
- Web hosting
|
Category Two
Eligible
|
Ineligible
|
|
Equipment and Services
- Access points for wired and wireless LANs
- Caching
- Firewall services and components
- Switches, routers and racks
- Uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs)/battery backups
- Wireless controller systems
- Software that supports internal broadband distribution
- Managed internal broadband services
- Basic maintenance
|
Services or Components
- Circuit cards/components
- Data protection
- Interfaces, gateways, antennas (except for antennas that support internal broadband connections)
- Servers (except for servers necessary for caching)
- Software (except for software that supports internal broadband connections)
- Storage devices
- Telephone and video components
- Voice/video IP components
|
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