Millions of rural Americans in 49 states and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands will gain access to high-speed Internet service through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction. Auction results show that bidders won funding to deploy high-speed broadband to over 5.2 million unserved homes and businesses, almost 99% of the locations available in the auction. Moreover, 99.7% of these locations will be receiving broadband with speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps, with an overwhelming majority (over 85%) getting gigabit-speed broadband. Charter Communications was assigned the most locations, just over 1.05 million. A total of 180 bidders won auction support, to be distributed over the next 10 years.

A broad range of providers successfully competed in the Phase I auction, including cable operators, electric cooperatives, incumbent telephone companies, satellite companies, and fixed wireless providers. And the FCC’s structuring of the reverse auction yielded significant savings, as competitive bidding among over 300 providers yielded an allocation of $9.2 billion in support out of the $16 billion set aside for Phase I of the auction. Importantly, the $6.8 billion in potential Phase I support that was not allocated will be rolled over into the future Phase II auction, which now can draw upon a budget of up to $11.2 billion in targeting partially-served areas (and the few unserved areas that did not receive funding through Phase I).

The auction unleashed robust price competition that resulted in more locations being awarded at less cost to Americans who pay into the Universal Service Fund. The 5,220,833 locations assigned support in the auction had an initial reserve price of over $26 billion over the next decade; through vigorous competition among bidders, the final price tag to cover these locations is now just over $9 billion, with the vast majority of locations receiving gigabit broadband—far above the 25/3 Mbps minimum level of service that providers could bid on in the auction. Providers must meet periodic buildout requirements that will require them to reach all assigned locations by the end of the sixth year. They are incentivized to build out to all locations as fast as possible.

New pandemic-induced dependence on robust internet connectivity has shone a light on the stark inequities of broadband access and helped spur a new focus on addressing a long-standing question — why isn’t internet service a public utility with the same support, disbursement, and regulation afforded to other basic necessities like water, electricity and telephone service? While federal COVID-19 relief funding has helped Utah school administrators navigate some of the challenges raised by pandemic-related remote learning, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Sydnee Dickson said much more needs to be done. “We have to treat broadband as an essential utility, like electricity, in order to bridge the digital divide and resulting knowledge gap for families,” Dickson said.

The C-band auction gets underway Dec 8, pitting 57 entities against one another for coveted mid-band wireless spectrum. All three major mobile carriers, as well as smaller carriers, cable companies, fixed wireless internet service providers (WISPs) and others have qualified to bid in the auction, also known as Auction 107 or the 3.7 GHz auction. The C-band includes 280 MHz of spectrum between 3.7 and 3.98 GHz. It’s viewed as mid-band spectrum well suited to 5G deployment because it is seen as offering the optimum mixture of range and speed. Recent estimates of how much money the auction will raise are in the tens of billions of dollars. MITRE expects the auction to raise about $25 billion, while New Street Research reportedly forecasts $51 billion.