The latest venting chatter around EPC in the E-rate world has been the surprise Easter egg in the Form 470 tool. At time of publication, if an applicant includes over 2,000 characters in total in the narrative section of the form and saves the form as is, if they try to revisit the narrative sections for any necessary edits, they are locked out. Surprise!
To its credit, USAC has acknowledged the issue and is working to extend the character limit to over 5,000(!!!) In the meantime, we see it as applicants having a few options in dealing with this semi-fatal error – you can count each character, abb. all ur wrds lke ‘99 txt msgs, or jump on the latest communication craze – emojis.
Most phones and computers are set up with these helpful little pictures and let’s be honest, words are boring and spelling is hard. It just took EPC to let us know that the Paleo Diet wasn’t the only thing cavemen got right – communicating with pictures is soooo much simpler.
To help other join this emoji/EPC revolution, we have put together some ideas for the narratives.
= Fair and Competitive
= Internet Access
= Lowest corresponding price
= POTS
= Included separate pricing for ineligible data
= Proposal disqualification criteria
= Wireless Access Points
= Telecommunications phasedown
= user counts
= line counts
= Force Majeure
= cabling
= Dark Fiber
= Lit Fiber
= Basic Maintenance
= EPC
= Will need assistance with Form 471 detail
Hopefully this is a good starting point for applicants to jump on the emoji bandwagon and avoid getting locked-out of any Form 470 narratives.
Got your own ideas for E-rate emojis? Send us your ideas via twitter at @FFL.
And on a serious note:
= stay strong, France.
