FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Auction Was Supposed to Significantly Reduce America’s Rural Broadband Gap

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently completed its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction. The goal of the auction was to bring to rural areas across the United States the same affordable and reliable broadband service enjoyed in many urban and suburban areas. A review of the results of the auction shows it is unlikely the FCC attained its goal—and for America’s rural communities, the ongoing uncertainty is likely to persist for some time. CTC Technology & Energy analysis of the RDOF results points to a few key takeaways for local communities:

• If SpaceX’s Starlink low earth orbit satellite network won in your area, RDOF failed to incentivize any new investment in terrestrial broadband deployment—and the FCC’s funding will go to an untested technology that likely would have become available to your community anyway.
• Intense competition in the RDOF reverse auction led some gigabit providers to accept such low levels of support that they may not be able to secure financing to build their networks—raising doubts about the ability of some awardees to deliver on their commitments.
• Because RDOF winners are only obligated to complete 40 percent of their build-out by the end of the third year of funding, it may be years before a community can determine whether an awardee will deliver as promised.
• If an auction winner does not deliver on its commitments, it is unclear when those awarded areas will be eligible for additional federal funding.