Reverse auction highlights challenges of bringing broadband to rural areas

A new reverse auction by the Nebraska Public Service Commission (PSC) will allow telecommunication companies to bid on funds. The PSC’s order for the auction, NUSF-131, was entered on June 28. It sets the procedure for the reverse auction to bring broadband services of at least 100 megabits per second to certain census blocks in the state. The affected areas are primarily in northeast and south-central Nebraska, with none of them venturing farther west than McCook (NE). This will be a first-of-its-kind effort for a state to pull off. “The [Federal Communications Commission] has done a couple reverse auctions, but to my knowledge, we’re the first state who’s tried to do one,” said Cullen Robbins, the PSC’s director of telecommunications. This first run will assess the usefulness of reverse auctions in the future. The PSC only approved the reverse auction process in March 2022. “The idea behind it is, if there was money available and money not being used properly by other companies, that we could make that money available for other properties,” Robbins said.