Windstream exec says 10 percent of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund builds are already underway

It’s taken more than a year for the Federal Communications Commission to authorize all of the nearly $523 million Windstream won in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction, but it hasn’t been resting on its laurels in the interim. During the auction, Windstream won a total of $522.9 million to cover 192,567 locations across 18 states with fiber. Jeff Small, president of Windstream’s Kinetic business, said construction on about 10 percent of its build is already underway. The company said work is spread across 16 of the 18 states where it won support. Small added it’s working through a detailed engineering process for another 20 percent, which includes field surveys of planned routes. Small acknowledged Windstream did default on winning RDOF bids for 29 census blocks across 7 states, but said these contributed to only a “nominal” reduction in its total funding amount and coverage commitment. It expects around 20,000 of the 400,000 locations it plans to cover with fiber in 2022 will come from RDOF, with a similar number of subsidized locations set to be covered in 2023. Small said it is deploying XGS-PON technology for all of its RDOF builds.