Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) sent a stinging letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai detailing the agency’s chronic failures to correctly map and support New York households with limited broadband access.

The Federal Communications Commission has received challenges from about 180 entities that have stated that they provide broadband at speeds of at least 25 Mbps downstream and 3 Mbps upstream, along with voice service, to at least part of census blocks that were on the commission’s preliminary list of areas eligible for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) reverse auction scheduled to start in Oct.

On May 1, 2020, Frontier respond to NTCA, NRECA and WISPA, who questioned claims made in Frontier’s challenge to the list of census blocks deemed initially eligible in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction. Frontier confirmed the vast majority of the census blocks listed in its challenge represent existing builds, including those undertaken as part of the Connect America Fund II program over the past five years.

Small Internet providers have asked for a government investigation into Frontier Communications' claim that it recently deployed broadband to nearly 17,000 census blocks, saying the expansion seems unlikely given Frontier's bankruptcy and its historical failure to upgrade networks in rural areas. NTCA–The Rural Broadband Association, which represents about 850 small ISPs, is skeptical of Frontier's reported deployment.

On April 10, 2020, Frontier Communications submitted a limited challenge in the above-referenced docket seeking to exclude more than 16,000 census blocks from eligibility in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (“RDOF”) Phase I auction. Appendix 1 of the Frontier Challenge lists census blocks where Frontier asserts that it “has deployed broadband service at speeds of 25/3 Mbps since Frontier’s June 2019 Form 477 and that appear on the Bureau’s preliminary list.” If successful in its entirety, an estimated 400,000 Americans would live in areas that would not be eligible this year for RDOF supp

The Colorado Broadband Office (CBO) wrote to ask Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai to extend the October 22, 2020 opening of the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund 904 Auction (RDOF 904 Auction) and the Rural Tribal Window timeline, set to close on August 3, 2020, by 180 days respectively. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that the internet is critical infrastructure and having the ability to virtually conduct business, video conferences with medical professionals, and access online education has become essential for everyone, everywhere.

Frontier Communications recently declared bankruptcy, following a history of increasingly unsustainable acquisitions. It also just missed its milestone for the Connect America Fund, which required the company to deploy obsolete 10/1 Mbps service to 80 percent of the funded locations by the end of 2019 in return for more than $1.5 billion in subsidies. Some 774,000 locations should have at least 10/1 Mbps service by the end of 2020 from a company Consumer Reports repeatedly finds to be one of the worst Internet Service Providers in the nation.

Is the $20 billion budget allocated by the Federal Communications Commission for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) enough to meet rural broadband deployment goals?

This pandemic may define our generation, and the changes in our daily lives required by social distancing have highlighted the importance of broadband and the consequences of internet inequality. I’d like to discuss four points that I think are necessary to address the digital divide in rural America. First, the Federal Communications Commission must fund rural broadband with fixed maps. Second, to address rural connectivity we must incentivize providers to bring future-proof broadband to our communities. Third, we must hold auction winners accountable.

The debate on whether broadband is a luxury or an essential connection to society is over. More than twice as many people are now using residential broadband during business hours as before the COVID-19 crisis. Over 55 million students have been impacted by school closures. The use of telehealth has skyrocketed. This, I believe, is our broadband moment: a hinge of history that will determine whether today’s residential broadband is fit for the changed world in which we inhabit or whether its limits work to disadvantage those that are not equipped to use it.