FCC Launches $20 Billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

The Federal Communications Commission took its single biggest step to date to close the digital divide by establishing the new Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to efficiently fund the deployment of high-speed broadband networks in rural America. Through a two phase reverse auction mechanism, the FCC will direct up to $20.4 billion over ten years to finance up to gigabit speed broadband networks in unserved rural areas, connecting millions more American homes and businesses to digital opportunity.

The first phase of the RDOF will begin later in 2020 and target census blocks that are wholly unserved with fixed broadband at speeds of at least 25/3 Mbps. This phase would make available up to $16 billion to census blocks where existing data shows there is no such service available whatsoever. Funds will be allocated through a multi-round reverse auction like that used in 2018’s Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II auction. FCC staff’s preliminary estimate is that about six million rural homes and businesses are located in areas initially eligible for bidding in the Phase I auction. The RDOF auction will prioritize networks with higher speeds, greater usage allowances, and lower latency. To support the deployment of sustainable networks in this auction, the auction will prioritize bidders committing to provide fast service with low latency. This will encourage the deployment of networks that will meet with needs of tomorrow as well as today. Bidders must also commit to provide a minimum speed more than double than was required in the CAF Phase II auction.

Phase II of the program will make available at least $4.4 billion to target partially served areas, census blocks where some locations lack access to 25/3 Mbps broadband. Using the granular, precise broadband mapping data being developed in the FCC’s Digital Opportunity Data Collection, along with census blocks unawarded in the Phase I auction.