Lessons from the 2013 Broadband Connect America Fund

[Commentary] The final accounting from the 2013 Broadband Connect America Fund program is all but completed -- and the results were considerably different from what occurred with the 2012 program. There are two key takeaways about the program, which is designed to help spur broadband deployment in rural America. First, the plan to allow a carrier to request and obtain additional funding that other carriers declined succeeded in increasing overall participation in the program. Second, a considerable amount of funding that carriers requested was challenged by competitors who argued that they already provided broadband to some of the homes for which funding was requested. And in the majority of cases, the FCC resolved the disputes in favor of the competitors.