Carr Statement on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

I want to highlight three features of our decision today. First, we support the type of high-speed networks that are key to building 5G in communities across the country. So our decision marks another significant step forward for U.S. leadership in wireless. Second, when we launched this proceeding last summer, I proposed that we prioritize truly unserved communities over those that might already have fast Internet connections. Instead of treating every community with less than 25 Mbps the same, I suggested that we first focus on communities that have dial-up or nothing. I am pleased that we moved forward with that idea. Third, I want to thank my colleagues for working with me on ways to improve on the item that circulated a few weeks ago. In particular, we made important changes to our letter of credit requirement. The original draft could have required winning bidders to spend over $600 million more than necessary on fees to financial institutions. And it could have prevented providers from participating in the program altogether, which would only decrease our chances of getting more broadband built out. So rather than tying up scarce dollars in financial institutions, we now free up more capital to go directly into the ground building out Internet infrastructure. In doing so, we also put new milestones in place that incentivize providers to build out on an accelerated basis.