Good News for Windstream, Bad News for LTD Broadband in Latest FCC RDOF Action

In the latest round of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund awards, the Federal Communications Commission said it is ready to authorize funding for Windstream and 11 other companies. Windstream winning bids fill more than 60 of the 80 total pages that comprise the list. The FCC said it is ready to authorize Windstream winning bids in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio. LTD Broadband is not among them and the company got some bad RDOF news from the FCC. The commission said it would not extend the deadline for the company to receive eligible telecommunications carrier (ETC) status in North Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa. Winning bidders are required to have ETC designation in states for which they won funding and the deadline to obtain that designation was June 7, 2021. The FCC took issue with the fact that LTD didn’t file with the public service commissions (PSCs) in the three states until five months after being advised of its winning bids. LTD Broadband had requested a waiver in these states, saying that it understood that the PSCs could issue ETC approvals within 30 days and its ETC filings were made 30 days before the deadline.