The objective of this team is to develop detailed bids rapidly and accurately for products and services to be provided to those schools who are participating in the "E-Rate" funding process. The basic premise is to develop a teaming arrangement to allow common information to be shared and coordinated bids to be submitted. This will substantially reduce the cost to schools by having a single point of contact for the vendors and schools via the project engineering team from SYNECTICS, Ltd.

Our intent is to make the overall process easier and less expensive. All participants will understand all aspects of the process.

By using a centralized project management approach we will:

• create a more streamlined process
• remove inefficiencies
• reduce costs
• increase opportunities to meet users’ goals
• increase volumes for greater discounts
• create database for efficient tracking and follow-up
• Provide a "Turn Key" system for the School to meet users' needs
• Insure quality and reliability for long-term performance.

Team E-Rate Participants:

On May 8, 1997, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Universal Service Order implementing the universal service provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Order seeks to ensure that all eligible schools and libraries have affordable access to modern telecommunications and information services.

The FCC established a fund of up to $2.25 billion annually to provide eligible schools and libraries with discounts for telecommunications services, internal connections and Internet access.

Discounts range from 20 to 90 percent, depending on the school's or library's economic need and location. The level of discount is based upon the percent of students eligible for participation in the federal free or reduced price school lunch program. Libraries will use the school discount percentage of the school district in which they are located. This fund is set up and administered by the Schools and Libraries Corporation (SLC.)

We have set up a coordination team for suppliers to simplify the response and implementation process. We call it Team E-Rate. SYNECTICS' role is to act as project engineer and project management to assure that all items needed by a school are indeed on the 470 and that a workable, industry standard response is provided with a competitive price, including state pricing where applicable. If accepted, we also coordinate the end-to-end implementation and confirm that the 471 and 486 forms are inclusive of all eligible services. This provides the various suppliers with a simple, integrated implementation process, including payment tracking. Schools on the other hand have a single point of contact for bidding, design verification, and testing. We have tested this with several schools and find that it substantially reduces supplier and school time to determine needs and meet them. This will result in better installations, consistent and reliable service, accurate forms submittal and payment, and lower costs for all concerned - supplier, school, and the funding agencies such as State and SLC.

As a result of analysis of many of the initial 470's and the numerous URGENT reports from the SLC on rejections of 471's, we have been asked to develop and have initiated a simple survey that will allow us to provide a service to schools and libraries to prepare a draft of their 470 submittals, to review initial designs, to prepare a review of received bids, to review their criteria for acceptance, and to prepare the 471 for their signature and submittal. A small fee is charged for this service which can be applied to any E-Rate eligible services which are purchased from SYNECTICS, Ltd Schools have found that the fee is significantly less than the time they are spending reviewing all the E-Rate and SLC messages and the risk they have that the 471 will be ineligible or incorrect. We will be sending out additional information soon.

Please include us on your list as:

SYNECTICS, Ltd. (Project Engineering - Telecom and data systems) SPIN - 143004591