Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

In a statement to the House Commerce Committee, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said the agency has received around 2,200 complaints related to theCOVID-19 pandemic. Of those complaints, 1,400 have received a response from the carrier, Chairman Pai said. Around 500 of those total complaints were filed specifically about the FCC’s Keep Americans Connected Pledge, the agency’s primary response to the pandemic.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the items below are tentatively on the agenda for the June Open Commission Meeting scheduled for Tuesday, June 9, 2020:

The FCC's June 2020 meeting agenda includes the following:

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai shared draft procedures for the upcoming $16 billion Phase I Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction (Auction 904). With financial support from the auction, service providers will expand broadband service to millions of unserved homes and businesses in rural areas. At the FCC’s June 9 open meeting, the FCC will vote on finalizing these draft procedures. Auction 904 is the first phase of the FCC’s $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund initiative, which is modeled on the FCC’s successful Connect America Fund Phase II auction in 2018.

Nothing in US history has exposed the rural digital divide as has the COVID-19 pandemic. Too many students in rural communities are being asked to participate in “distance learning” but are being left behind because their community’s infrastructure is insufficient. Adults, too, in rural communities are struggling with access to job listings and unemployment benefit applications as these services are frequently only available online.

The House on narrowly passed a $3 trillion coronavirus relief package crafted by Democrats. The bill passed by a vote of 208-199 and now heads to the Senate. One Republican backed the bill, while 14 Democrats voted against it. The House also passed a resolution to temporarily change House rules to allow for proxy voting and remote committee work during the pandemic, an unprecedented shift to how the chamber operates. It passed mostly along party lines.

On May 12, House Democrats unveiled the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act. "We are presenting a plan to do what is necessary to address the corona crisis," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as she announced the legislation.

After Frontier Communications claimed that it now offers broadband in 17,000 rural census blocks in an effort to remove those areas from the Federal Communications Commission’s upcoming rural broadband funding program, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance filed comments with the FCC to draw attention to Frontier’s questionable claims. “We are concerned that Frontier may have overstated its capacity to actually deliver the claimed services in many areas,” the comments read.

Efforts from the Federal Communications Commission to expand both fixed-wireless and mobile broadband across rural America will require more granular data to reach their full potential, but deployment efforts shouldn’t be delayed any longer, according to industry stakeholders and legislators testifying at a Senate hearing. The FCC has acknowledged that its data-collection processes are fundamentally flawed as carriers have overstated coverage in their self-reported map data.