E-rate Incumbent Provider and Contract Expiry Lookup (USAC Form 471 FRN)

E-rate Incumbent Provider Lookup answers "who provides internet to a school district or library, and when does that E-rate contract expire?" in one call from USAC's public FCC Form 471 FRN Status data. Give it a Billed Entity Number (BEN), an applicant name, or a state plus a date window, and get one clean row per funding request (FRN): incumbent service provider, contract number, contract expiration date, bid count, discount rate, pre-discount cost, committed dollars and FRN status. A free SUMMARY row rolls it up to incumbents and the next expiry date. No login, no API key, no personal contact fields.

Input

Three modes: ben, name and expiring. This example lists every Texas internet-access contract expiring before July 2027:

{
  "mode": "expiring",
  "state": "TX",
  "expiring_before": "2027-06-30",
  "service_type": "Data Transmission and/or Internet Access",
  "max_rows": 1000
}

• mode: ben (every FRN for one BEN, default), name (every FRN whose applicant name contains organization_name), or expiring (every FRN in a state whose contract expires in a window).
• ben: USAC Billed Entity Number (default 141146, Midway ISD, TX). organization_name: case-insensitive substring.
• state: two-letter code for expiring mode (default TX). expiring_after / expiring_before: window start and end; defaults are today and one year from today.
• funding_years: for example ["2025", "2026"]; empty means all (2016 onward).
• service_type: one of Data Transmission and/or Internet Access, Internal Connections, Basic Maintenance of Internal Connections, Managed Internal Broadband Services, Voice Services; empty means all.
• form_version: current (one row per FRN, default), original or all.
• include_line_items: add speed, function and product columns, one extra request per FRN (default false).
• max_rows: stop after this many rows (default 500, hard cap 5000).

Output

One row per FRN. Real example row (BEN 141146):

{
  "type": "FRN",
  "frn": "2699035597",
  "funding_year": 2026,
  "form_version": "Current",
  "organization_name": "Midway Indep School District",
  "ben": "141146",
  "state": "TX",
  "applicant_type": "School District",
  "form_471_service_type_name": "Data Transmission and/or Internet Access",
  "spin_name": "Grande Communications Networks, LLC",
  "contract_number": null,
  "contract_type_name": "Contract",
  "contract_expiration_date": "2029-06-30",
  "extended_expiration_date": "2034-06-30",
  "service_start_date": "2026-07-01",
  "award_date": "2026-03-18",
  "bid_count": 6,
  "has_voluntary_extension": "Yes",
  "remaining_extension_count": 5,
  "total_pre_discount_costs": 29100,
  "dis_pct": 0.6,
  "funding_commitment_request": 17460,
  "frn_status": "Funded",
  "frn_record_url": "https://opendata.usac.org/resource/qdmp-ygft.json?funding_request_number=2699035597",
  "retrieved_at": "2026-10-14T12:14:25.222Z"
}

Rows also carry establishing_form_470, monthly and one-time costs, total_authorized_disbursement, pending_reason, nickname, narrative, application_number and source_url; shortened here. The last row is a SUMMARY with the BENs, incumbents (FRN count, latest expiry, total commitment) and next_expiry_date.

Use cases

Search phrases this actor is built for:

• "E-rate: who provides internet to a school district": run ben or name mode on the district and read spin_name.
• "E-rate contract expiration date by school district": run expiring mode for a state and window to build a list before Form 470 season.
• "USAC Form 471 funding request incumbent vendor lookup": use name mode on "County Library" or "Unified School District" to see which carriers dominate a region and how many bids each FRN drew.

Typical users are telecom and managed-services sales teams, E-rate consultants and AI agents prospecting the E-rate market.

Pricing

Pay per result: $0.05 per FRN row returned ($50 per 1,000). The SUMMARY row is free. A typical single-district lookup is 20 to 80 rows, under $4. Set a maximum charge on the run for a hard ceiling.

Limits

• Data is USAC Open Data (dataset qdmp-ygft, plus hbj5-2bpj for line items), refreshed by USAC nightly. Contact-person names and e-mails in the source are dropped.
• contract_expiration_date excludes voluntary extensions; extended_expiration_date includes them.
• max_rows is capped at 5,000 per run. spin_name can be empty for cancelled FRNs or unregistered SPINs.

FAQ

What is an FRN? A Funding Request Number: one line of a Form 471 asking for an E-rate discount on a specific contract with a specific provider.

What is a BEN? The Billed Entity Number, USAC's ID for the applicant. Find it with name mode; the SUMMARY row lists matching BENs.

Why does USAC show twice as many rows? USAC publishes Original and Current versions of each FRN. This actor returns Current by default, one row and one charge per FRN.