FCC Urged to Fully Fund Remaining Cybersecurity Pilot Program Applicants
Withdrawn applications free up enough to fund all others in full, New York's E-rate coordinator argued.
WASHINGTON, August 6, 2025 – New York State E-Rate Coordinator Winston Himsworth requested in a filing Wednesday that the Federal Communications Commission fully fund the remaining 25 Cybersecurity Pilot Program applicants, enabling schools and libraries to create a safer digital environment.
The FCC’s Cybersecurity Pilot Program, funded by the Universal Service Fund, provides up to $200 million to selected participants to purchase eligible cybersecurity services and equipment. Funds are allocated to applicants over a three-year period, after which the FCC will determine how effectively funding was used to protect school and library broadband networks and data and whether to fund them on a permanent basis.
In the FCC’s initial Cybersecurity Pilot Program Order, 25 applicants were only partially funded – receiving only 78% of the funds they requested. Himsworth was now requesting that funds for these applicants be given in full, particularly now as seventeen of the original Pilot applicants have withdrawn from the Program, freeing up funding for the others.
As previously reported by Broadband Breakfast, the New York City Department of Education and the New York Public Library system pulled out of the program.
NYCDOE E-rate Compliance Officer Junaid Qaiser did not go into much detail about the department’s decision, but stated that “due to our lengthy procurement process, we will not have a registered contract for cybersecurity services, procured under E-rate rules, by the program’s application deadline of September 15, 2025.”
Himsworth highlights an earlier FCC Notice that establishes, “In the event of any withdrawals or removals from the Pilot Program, the Bureau will first seek to fully fund the Pilot participants included in Appendix B,” the partially funded applicants.
He explains that the 25 remaining partially funded applicants have already been promised $13.57 million, but to fully fund them would require a total of $17.39 million. While a gap of $3.38 million exists, the funding freed up from the 17 applicants that withdrew amounts to $8.03 million – more than enough to fully fund the remaining 25 applicants.
With the application window for the next stage of the program set to close on September 15, 2025, Himsworth was urging the FCC to quickly reissue funding commitment letters to those 25 applicants.
However, to “provide those participants maximum flexibility in fully using their expanded funding commitments,” he suggests that the application deadline be extended to October 15, 2025.
Member discussion