Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

Broadband Is Not Taking An August Recess

Each year, Congress recesses for the month of August. While the work—or, at least, the news—of Washington generally slows down in this period, all indications are that policymakers—and, most importantly, policy implementors—will be very busy throughout the summer of 2022 working on universal broadband and provisions of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Here's what we're seeing and expecting from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). 

FCC Rejects LTD Broadband and Starlink Bids for Broadband Subsidies

The Federal Communications Commission rejected the long-form applications of LTD Broadband and Starlink to receive support through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program. The FCC determined that these applications failed to demonstrate that the providers could deliver the promised service.

Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Support Authorized for 95 Winning Bids

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB)—in conjunction with the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force (RBATF) and the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA)—authorized Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (Auction 904) support for 95 more winning bids.

SpaceX Responds to Viasat Over Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Concerns

SpaceX filed a letter to the Federal Communications Commission on July 29 in response to Viasat's previous claims that the company is unable to fulfill the requirements of its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) award. According to SpaceX, Viasat is trying to protect its legacy technology through influence the FCC to limit competition. The company also said that recent data from Ookla shows Starlink is able to provide the speeds necessary for RDOF funding, which exceed Viasat's performance.

Viasat Sends Letter to FCC Regarding Starlink's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Commitments

On July 13, Viasat wrote to the Federal Communications Commission regarding SpaceX's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) commitments. "Viasat writes to update the record with respect to the continued inability of the authorized Starlink system to satisfy SpaceX’s RDOF commitments," said the letter.

Mower County (MN) Maps Broadband Expansion for Underserved Areas

Federal and state funds will be used to expand access to high speed Internet in underserved areas of Mower County (MN). While it's getting better, there is still work to do in getting high-speed Internet to all corners of the county.

FCC Proposes Fines of $4.3 Million Against 73 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Applicants for Defaults

The Federal Communications Commission proposed $4,353,773.87 in fines against 73 applicants in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund auction (Auction 904) for apparently violating FCC requirements by defaulting on their bids between July 26, 2021 and March 10, 2022. The FCC provided clear guidance in its rules and notices on the monetary forfeitures associated with defaults in Auction 904. The bid defaults prevented 1,702 census block groups with 129,909 estimated locations in 36 states from seeing timely new investments in broadband infrastructure.

LTD Broadband may lose Rural Digital Opportunity Fund dollars in Minnesota

LTD Broadband, the top bidder in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) that can't seem to hold on to its funding, may see its dollars revoked in yet another state. This time the company is being challenged in Minnesota, where the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in that state has ordered an investigation to determine if the company can deliver on the $311 million it was designated by the Federal Communications Commission to build out in the state's rural areas.

Mercury Wireless, Two Other Companies Get Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Authorization

The Federal Communications Commission released over 80 pages of authorized bids in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction. All but part of one page were bids for Mercury Wireless, which had funding released for deployments in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Kansas. Mercury CEO Garrett Wiseman confirmed that some of the authorizations were for gigabit fiber broadband and some were for 100/20 Mbps fixed wireless. Those were the two types of bids that Mercury Wireless made in the auction. Wiseman said these were the first RDOF authorizations the company received.

FCC Authorizes 1,605 More Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Winning Bids

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB), in conjunction with the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force (RBATF) and the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA), authorizes Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (Auction 904) support for more winning bids. For each of the winning bids identified, the FCC has reviewed the long-form application information, including the letter(s) of credit and Bankruptcy Code opinion letter(s) from the long-form applicant’s legal counsel.

Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Clock is Ticking on 5 Big Winning Bidders, Will it Run Out?

It’s been 18 months since the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction was completed and the Federal Communications Commission has not yet released funding for five of the top 10 winning bidders. It’s beginning to look like that isn’t going to happen, considering that the other five top winning bidders have had all or most of their funding released, as have scores of smaller winners. The FCC typically releases a ready-to-authorize list of RDOF winning bidders every month and recently those lists have had only a small handful of smaller bidders on them.

What do Starlink’s latest Ookla results mean for its $886 million Rural Digital Opportunity Fund winnings?

Ookla released a new batch of Speedtest results which showed median download speeds for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband service jumped 38 percent year on year in the US in first quarter 2022. Even with that boost, the service still only delivered downstream rates of 90.55 Mbps, leaving it well short of the 144.2 Mbps median posted by the industry as a whole.

The FCC Must Help Rural America Get Internet Access

Why should taxpayers subsidize improvements in rural America (“Why Rural Americans Keep Waiting for Fast Internet,” Page One, June 16)? Rural communities account for nearly one-fifth of America’s population and one-tenth of its gross domestic product. They provide water, food and energy to the country. Although well-intentioned, government contracts are only as effective as their oversight. Clearly the government fell short in Heavener (OK) and elsewhere.

LTD Broadband Promised Fast Internet. Rural America Waits…and Waits

The Federal Communications Commission launched a major initiative to provide high-speed internet service to rural Americans in 2020, dedicating $9.2 billion through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to entice companies to extend their networks to places previously deemed too c

Why Rural Internet Is Still Terrible, Despite Billions in Federal Spending

The US government has spent billions of dollars on several rounds of programs to upgrade internet speeds in rural areas over the past decade. Despite those efforts, many residents are still stuck with service that isn’t fast enough to do video calls or stream movies—speeds that most take for granted.

Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Support Authorized for 513 Winning Bids

The Federal Communications Commission's Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB), in conjunction with the Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force (RBATF) and the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA), authorizes Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (Auction 904) support for 513 winning bids in Texas, Arkansas, Illinois, Mississippi, Idaho, Louisiana, Colorado, New Hampshire, Vermont, Missouri, Minnesota, California, Oregon, Indiana, North Dakota, New Mexico, Wyoming, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Northern Mariana Islands.

Tracking Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Winners

The Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) is still in the process of authorizing bids from its $9.2 billion auction conducted in December 2020. Areas for which winning bids are authorized will have a much harder time going after Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program funding.

Resound Networks Tests Gigabit Fixed Wireless

Resound Networks, a winning bidder in the Federal Communications Commission's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, has successfully achieved gigabit speeds using fixed wireless access (FWA) in the 6 GHz band via an experimental license. The company reached a distance of more than three miles using 160 MHz-wide channels that will become available in the band. Fixed wireless providers have big hopes for the 6 GHz band, which contains a wide swath of spectrum that will be available on an unlicensed basis. The FCC voted in 2020 to free up spectrum in the band. 

More Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Controversy

Recently, the Minnesota Telephone Alliance and the Minnesota Rural Electric Association asked the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to revoke the Eligible Telecommunications Carrier (ETC) status for LTD Broadband. ETC staus must awarded by a state regulatory authority or by the Federal Communications Commission to any carrier that wants to collect funding from the FCC’s Universal Service Fund. The petition stems from LTD being the winner in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction in Minnesota to receive $311 million to bring broadband to 102,000 passing in the state.

Consolidated Partners with Vermont Municipality on Fiber Network

Consolidated Communications is partnering with the Southern Vermont communications union district (CUD) to provide symmetrical gigabit speed broadband services to almost 12,000 Bennington County (VT) homes by the end of summer 2022. A CUD is a non-profit municipal entity that provides or aims to provide broadband in Vermont to two or more towns that are underserved or unserved. A CUD can fund operations through grants, debt and donations — but not taxes.

Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Support for 88 Winning Bids Ready to be Authorized

The Federal Communications Commission's Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force (RBATF), Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB or Bureau), and the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) announce they are ready to authorize Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (Auction 904) support for 88 more Auction 904 winning bids. Cyber Broadband will provide service in Alabama. And North Texas Fiber will offer service in Texas.

Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Winning Bidder Nextlink Reveals Gigabit Fixed Wireless Speed in 6 GHz Band

Nextlink Internet, which was one of the biggest winning bidders in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, said it has achieved speeds of 1 Gbps doanload and 500 Mbps upload using fixed wireless equipment in the 6 GHz band. The performance was achieved using a 160 MHz channel over distances of two miles, the company said.

Minnesota Telecom Alliance urges the state to revoke LTD Broadband's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund certification

The hits just keep coming for LTD Broadband. The Minnesota Telecom Alliance renewed an effort to block the operator from receiving millions in federal funding to deploy broadband in Minnesota, arguing LTD lacks the technical, managerial and financial capabilities needed to deliver the promised coverage. At issue is the $311 million in support LTD Broadband won in the Federal Communications Commission’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction in 2020 to cover 102,000 residents in Minnesota.

What do the Infrastructure Act broadband funding rules mean for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund?

When the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction was held in 2020, there was no way the Federal Communications Commission could have known that Congress would invest heavily in achieving universal broadband coverage a few years later, according to New Street Research analyst Blair Levin. But once Congress passed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), it was clear there would be tension between the two efforts, he said.