The FCC should clarify which services qualify for universal servi...

VoIP software user licenses. ESPA agreed that e-mail archiving is ineligible for support under current rules. But it said the distinction between e-mail archiving and e-mail storage -- an eligible service -- is unclear. To be deemed storage, ESPA proposed, a user must be affiliated with the school or library. Storage must be of limited duration, not exceeding a year, and must occur at the service provider or on site at a district-owned building, it said. ESPA also proposed a new way to distinguish between eligible and ineligible content storage. ESPA disputes Universal Service Administrative Co.’s method, which “requires service providers and applicants to allocate a portion of the underlying server” to be ineligible, “rather than the simpler method of determining… the additional storage requirements above and beyond the basic server,” it said. The USAC method is “inherently inaccurate,” and “any potential cost-savings to the program may be outweighed by the administrative burden to applicants, service providers and program administrators,” it said. Intranet Web hosting should qualify for funding, though the USAC says it doesn’t, ESPA said. “Schools have legally-mandated privacy requirements” necessitating intranets, ESPA said. Forcing them to carve that cost out “significantly reduces the utility of the website in question, and makes the process more complex and burdensome,” it said.