FCDL Comment:
DR1:FCC rules require that applicants provide sufficient information with the FCC Form 470 in order for potential vendors to be able to formulate valid service solutions. Specifically, your RFP refers service providers to "an attached specification Managed Internal Broadband Services, Exhibits A, B, C, and D", which contained the necessary information for providers to submit a responsive bid. However, these documents were not uploaded to the Form 470 with the rest of the RFP. This FRN is denied because the applicant has not provided sufficient information for potential vendors to evaluate its service needs. ||DR2:During the review process you provided additional RFP attachments A, B, C, and D that contains significant information for the bidders to be able to respond to the FCC Form 470 and RFP. Program procedures require the FCC Form 470, RFP as well as documentation providing any additional or modifying the original information in your FCC Form 470 and/or Request for Proposal be uploaded into the FCC Form 470 in E-rate Productivity Portal for all potential service providers to evaluate. Despite uploading the RFP to your FCC Form 470, additional documentation that contained information needed for potential bidders to respond to your RFP was not uploaded to the E-rate Productivity Portal and thus not made available for all potential vendors to evaluate. Therefore, this FRN is denied for the competitive bidding violation.||DR3:FCC Rules require applicants to retain all documentation for ten years regarding the competitive bidding process. During application review, you were asked to provide all bids associated with this funding request and you were unable to provide a bid from Ednetics that supported the requested service and funding amount. Therefore, this FRN is denied.||DR4:The provided explanation of the time lapse between the posting date of the referenced FCC Form 470 and the Contract Award Date (CAD) is not sufficient. USAC concludes that the competitive bid evaluation process was not conducted fairly resulting in a violation of program rules. Specifically, your FCC Form 470 was certified on 03/18/2016 and the Contract Award Date was five years later on 03/25/2021.||MR1:The FRN covered multiple years of service and therefore was reduced from $2,957184.88 to $677,521.48 to cover only the current fund year.