FCC Announces Over $311 Million for Broadband, Acts to Clean Up Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Program

The Federal Communications Commission is ready to authorize over $311 million in broadband funding across 36 states through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund. At the same time, the agency took steps to clean up issues with the program’s design originating from its adoption in 2020. For now, 48 broadband providers will bring 1 Gbps broadband speeds to nearly 200,000 homes and businesses over the next 10 years. But in light of complaints that the program was poised to fund broadband to parking lots and well-served urban areas, the FCC sent letters to 197 winning bidders. The letters offer providers an opportunity to withdraw their funding requests from those places already with service or where significant questions of waste have been raised. Next, the FCC made clear that it will not tolerate any provider participating in the program that is not serious about providing broadband service or has not made appropriate efforts to secure state approvals. To this end, the FCC rejected requests from AB Indiana in Florida and LTD Broadband in California, Oklahoma, and Kansas to waive program deadlines, in light of their failure to act in a timely way to seek state certification. The FCC also released an initial list of areas where winning bidders have chosen not to pursue buildout. These areas will immediately become available for other broadband funding opportunities and the defaulting bidders will be subject to enforcement penalties as warranted. The FCC continues to carefully review long-form applications of other winning bidders that were previously announced to ensure they meet the technical, financial and operational capabilities to comply with program obligations.