Chairman Pai's Response to Sen Manchin Regarding Mobility Fund Phase II

On Feb 23, 2020, Sen Joe Manchin (D-WV) wrote to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to urge him to "revise the aggressive timeline outline for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) and postpone the initial auction until after the eligibility maps can be challenged and verified." Sen Manchin also wrote Chairman Pai on Dec 3, 2019 to describe specific examples in West Virginia of unreliable broadband service.

On March 9, Chairman Pai responded by writing, "As you know, I am well aware of the shortcomings of current broadband maps; Commission staff are hard at work implementing the precise, granular broadband maps under the Commission’s Digital Opportunity Data Collection adopted last August. The Digital Opportunity Data Collection will incorporate feedback from state, local, and Tribal governments, and from consumers on the ground. That’s why the Commission has allocated at least $4.4 billion (plus any funds remaining as a result of competitive bidding in Phase I) for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase II auction, which will use the new broadband maps to target those areas located in partially served census blocks. But there is simpiy no excuse for the Commission to wait to deploy broadband to rural Americans we know for a fact are unserved. It would be like refusing to provide medical treatment to people that we know are sick until we identify every single person in the country suffering from that same illness." 

Regarding the Dec letter, Chairman Pai responded by saying that the FCC now requires universal service funding recipients to report the specific locations where they offer high-speed broadband. Also, the FCC is setting up the Digital Opportunity Data Collection to create a process for public input on the accuracy of service providers' broadband maps via a crowd-sourcing portal.