Pai Statement on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is building on the success of the Connect America Phase II auction. But we’re also making some significant changes to our CAF II approach—changes that will mean better networks covering more Americans. We’re more than doubling the minimum speeds that the auction will support from 10/1 Mbps in CAF II to 25/3 Mbps. We’re increasing the weights on bids to favor higher speeds and lower latency. We’ll assign support to the bidder offering the best combination of speed and latency, once the combined price of bids in each area in the auction falls below the available budget. We’re also making changes that will help ensure maximum participation—and therefore maximum broadband deployment—in the auction. We’re including in the auction many areas that were previously excluded from some of our rural broadband programs but where market forces alone still have not brought about broadband deployment. We’re increasing support to bidders serving Tribal lands, where deployment is often especially challenging. And we’re adding a new, intermediate speed tier of 50/5 Mbps to the auction that will give bidders greater flexibility to design networks and use technologies that make sense for the area where they’re bidding.