Form 470 alerts for E-Rate service providers

What a Form 470 alert is

An FCC Form 470 is how a school, library or consortium opens competitive bidding for E-Rate services. Once the applicant certifies it, USAC posts it publicly, and the applicant must wait at least 28 days before it signs a contract with anyone. That date is the allowable contract date.

A Form 470 alert is a notice that a new posting matches what you sell. It is the starting gun for everything after it: questions to the applicant, a site walk if the RFP allows one, a quote, and a bid that lands before the applicant's deadline.

Why searching by hand falls behind

USAC's public tools let you search and download Form 470s by state, funding year and service type. They are free and they are the official record, but they don't push anything to you. Someone has to run the search, read every new posting and decide which ones are worth a call, every day of the filing season. Our guide to searching Form 470s walks through those tools.

Two things make that slow. First, most postings in a state are not a fit: too far away, the wrong services, a license renewal, or a request that only takes bids through a portal you don't use. Second, the posting alone doesn't tell you whether the district has budget left or who holds the work today, and both decide whether a bid is worth the effort.

What to filter on

Filter on the things that would make you say no on the phone. For a Category 2 provider that usually means:

• Distance, not just state. Miles from your nearest office, with a tighter limit for work that needs someone on site, such as basic maintenance.
• The services you sell. Internal connections, managed internal broadband services (MIBS), basic maintenance of internal connections (BMIC), cabling or equipment-only resale.
• Requests you'd never bid. Equipment-only, portal-only, license-renewal and consortium requests, if those aren't your business.
• Consulting firms. Some providers follow particular E-Rate consultants' postings closely; others skip them.
• Bidding rules. Whether an RFP is attached, and whether the applicant only accepts bids by email.

What each alert should show

An alert is only useful if you can size up the opportunity without opening five other tabs. For each matching 470, look for:

• The applicant, its BEN, city and distance from you
• The services and quantities requested, and whether an RFP is attached
• The allowable contract date and how many days are left
• The consulting firm, if one filed it
• Who holds the work today (see finding the incumbent)
• How much of the district's five-year Category 2 budget is left

The last two matter more than they look. A district that has already spent its Category 2 budget can still post a 470, but a large equipment bid there may go nowhere. And a public record of who won last time tells you what you are competing against.

How Workbench sends them

E-Rate Workbench reads USAC Open Data every night and screens every new Category 2 Form 470 against your bases, travel limits, services and consultant rules. The matches arrive as a morning email at the time you choose, with what the screen dropped and why, and up to ten people on your team can get it. When you first set up, the monitor back-fills the last 60 days of postings so your first morning isn't empty.

Every match carries its incumbent, the district's remaining Category 2 budget and a countdown to the allowable contract date, and you can mark it Bid, Hold or No-bid straight from the list.

Related guides

• Searching Form 470s
• The allowable contract date
• Finding the incumbent