Charter gets cracking on Rural Digital Opportunity Fund builds in 3 states

The Federal Communications Commission has yet to distribute funding to the winners of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction, but that isn’t stopping Charter Communications from getting to work on rural coverage expansion projects. Charter handed Gibson Technical Services a contract to handle construction for its RDOF projects in Alabama, Louisiana and North Carolina. The award includes 8,600 miles of “full-service construction,” which includes aerial construction, underground construction, fiber placement, placement and activation of power supplies, fiber optic cable slicing and testing. Work is set to begin immediately and continue over the next five to six years, Gibson parent company Orbital Energy Group said in a press release. When asked about whether the operator plans to award additional contracts for RDOF projects, Charter--the second-largest winner in the RDOF auction--stated it is "making strong progress in terms of both in-house project leadership and contract labor for our RDOF buildouts, but [they] don't have any specific announcements to share right now." Charter’s decision to award a construction contract to Gibson comes despite uncertainty around when the FCC might begin doling out RDOF funding to auction winners.