The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund: Rural America’s Broadband Hopes at Risk

The Federal Communications Commission's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I encouraged many with the promise of needed support to connect homes with true broadband services in unserved rural communities. However, RDOF’s Phase I exposed many issues that will likely lead to deployment delays, missed expectations, or worse. Specifically, some applicants that bid in the Gigabit tier have submitted unrealistic wireless network designs that are highly unlikely to produce Gigabit service to rural communities. Also, several awards for wide swaths of the country with varied terrain and topography went to bidders with limited financial and operational qualifications. Despite this, the $9.2 billion awarded was far below the $16 billion budgeted amount. The FCC can address these issues during the upcoming long-form review by scrutinizing:

  1. Technology/Network Design: The Commission itself initially expressed reasonable concerns about new technologies, and proposed (but unfortunately did not retain) reasonable limits upon certain types of bids. It foresaw the problem with allowing bidders to obtain funding using unproven technologies at the Gigabit level. Unproven methods risk stranding rural consumers without broadband infrastructure.
  2. Financial and Operational Qualifications: The FCC reasonably sought to include smaller companies seeking to serve relatively limited areas. But there are questions regarding how some applicants, with apparently limited operational experience, bid for and won RDOF support for vast areas that they will likely not be able to build or operate.

The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund: Rural America’s Broadband Hopes at Risk