Chairman Pai's Response to Reps. Trone, Hoyer, Ruppersberger, Sarbanes, Harris, Brown and Raskin Regarding RDOF

On April 9, Reps David Trone (D-MD), Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), John Sarbanes (D-MD), Andy Harris (R-MD), Anthony Brown (D-MD, and James Raskin (D-MD) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai about the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF), particularly calling to revise eligibility for the program so that states with existing investments to build out their capacity are not disqualified from receiving RDOF funding.

On Sept 1, Chairman Pai responded by saying, "Given our goal not to duplicate funding targeted to a particular area, if a service provider has state-based funding and a commitment to deploy 25/3 Mbps or better service in one area, it cannot receive FCC funding to deliver similar service to that same area. But it would still be eligible to participate in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund in other areas in the state that are unserved and not covered by a funding commitment." He went on to note that, "In total, fewer than 1% of the census blocks initially deemed eligible for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction were removed due to state broadband funding programs (for Maryland, only 421 locations were removed due to such programs—40,406 remain eligible), so this restriction had an extremely limited impact on the areas eligible for the auction that will begin in October."