What do the Infrastructure Act broadband funding rules mean for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund?

When the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction was held in 2020, there was no way the Federal Communications Commission could have known that Congress would invest heavily in achieving universal broadband coverage a few years later, according to New Street Research analyst Blair Levin. But once Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), it was clear there would be tension between the two efforts, he said. One of the major questions that sprang up was whether the Commerce Department would count the thousands of satellite and FWA locations supposedly covered under RDOF as served when determining where IIJA funding should be applied. That question was top of mind for many given earlier concerns about the ability of RDOF’s satellite and fixed wireless access (FWA) winners to deliver on their commitments and the growing possibility that some such RDOF winners might not receive expected funding in some areas. The rules the Commerce Department issued for the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program and several other broadband funding initiatives make two things clear: that the priority for funding is on covering unserved locations and that areas connected only with satellite or FWA services based on unlicensed spectrum will be considered unserved. According to Levin, this puts the power in the hands of the states to push fiber to wherever they think it’s needed.