1. Monthly archive
  2. January 2020

January 2020

Satellite Subsidies Will Widen Digital Divide in Rural America

The federal government is about to spend more than $120 million on subsidies that, rather than improving rural connectivity, will make tens of thousands of families worse off. These funds are part of a 2018 federal program intended to expand rural broadband access called the Connect America Fund phase II (CAF II) reverse auction. The program, in which Internet access providers competed for subsidies, will distribute nearly $1.5 billion over the next 10 years to connect unserved rural residents.

FCC Probes Interest in USF/ICC Transformation Order Petitions

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau has pending before it eight petitions for reconsideration of various aspects of the intercarrier compensation provisions of the Universal Service Fund/ USF/Intercarrier Compensation Transformation Order. Each of the Petitions was filed in 2011 and no entities have filed comments or ex parte submissions regarding these petitions for several years.

FCC Estimates State-by-State Impact of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced initial estimates of how many homes and businesses in each state could benefit from Phase I of the $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. In total, about 6 million rural homes and businesses could be eligible for bidding in an auction slated for later in 2020 to receive funding for high-speed broadband. This state-by-state list is for Phase I funding, which would target a total of $16 billion to census blocks with no broadband service at all meeting the FCC’s minimum speed standards.

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