Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

The Senate Commerce Committee approved the Advancing Critical Connectivity Expands Service, Small Business Resources, Opportunities, Access, and Data Based on Assessed Need and Demand (ACCESS BROADBAND) Act (S. 1046), as well as two-other communications-related bills. The bill creates the Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth within the National Telecommunications & Information Administration, the White House's chief communications policy adviser. The office will track the construction, use and access to broadband infrastructure built with federal subsidies.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai told a House Financial Services Subcommittee budget hearing that he could not provide a timeline for when the FCC could improve its broadband availability maps, in part because of a bill Congress just passed to require better mapping. Asked for a best-guess for when better maps could be produced, FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel (who was also testifying) said she thought the FCC could improve its maps within 3-6 months and again argued the FCC should hold off on handing new rural broadband buildout subsidies — $16 billion worth and the

The mounting school closures amid the coronavirus outbreak in the US are exposing major equity gaps in access to technology and the internet, and the Federal Communications Commission needs to step in, according to FCC commissioners. "Now is absolutely the time to talk about the coronavirus disruption and how technology can help," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel told a Senate hearing.

The Federal Communications Commission’s latest plan to expand high-speed internet access across the country has come under criticism by Members of Congress who fear over $20 billion in funding might not make it to the communities that need it most. Two dozen senators wrote to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai denouncing the FCC's new Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF).

The Federal Communications Commission proposed procedures for the first phase of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction, which will make up to $16 billion available for the deployment of fixed broadband networks across rural America. The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is targeting funding towards some of the least-served parts of the country and October’s Phase I auction could bring high-speed broadband to as many six million unserved homes and businesses in 2020, representing the FCC’s biggest step ever toward bridging the digital divide.

In a surprise move, between the publication of the draft Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Report and Order and the Federal Communications Commission’s final vote on the Report and Order, the FCC added the line stating that census blocks receiving “funding through other similar federal or state broadband subsidy programs” would be ineligible for Phase I RDOF funds.

Rep A. Donald McEachin (D-VA) led 22 of his colleagues from the House Commerce Committee in sending a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai requesting that the FCC reconsider the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Order in light of the last-minute language added to the adopted Order and released Feb 7.

On February 7, the Federal Communications Commission released the report and order that creates the framework for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, the latest effort to extend the reach of broadband networks deeper into rural America. The FCC's own research estimates that $80 billion is needed to bring broadband everywhere in the U.S., so the $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is a significant -- although likely insufficient -- step in closing the digital divide over the next decade. Here we review the framework and note some controversy around the FCC decision.

Amid widely conflicting reports of how many Americans truly lack access to high-speed internet, state broadband officials said that there’s too much funding at stake to rely on the Federal Communications Commission’s unreliable census-block data.

Areas that receive broadband funding through the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) ReConnect program or a state broadband program will not be eligible to receive funding through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF). In the RDOF Report and Order, adopted Jan 30 and released publicly on Feb 7, the Federal Communications Commission justified the decision by noting that it was “consistent with our overarching goal of ensuring that finite universal service support is awarded in an efficient and cost-effective manner and does not go toward overbuilding areas that already have service.”