Saturday, January 29, 2022

FCC to open $1.2 billion through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund

The FCC announced e more than $1.2 billion through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to fund new broadband deployments in 32 states.  

In the largest funding round to date, 23 broadband providers will bring broadband service to over 1 million locations.  With this sixth funding wave, the FCC has now announced over $4 billion in funding to winning bidders for new deployments. 

“Today’s announcement means more connectivity is coming to consumers, while we continue our commitment to make sure that funding goes to areas that truly need it,” said Chairwoman Rosenworcel.  “The new Rural Broadband Accountability Plan will speed up our audit and verification processes and for the first time make public the results of verifications, audits, and speed and latency testing.  These new measures will help ensure that the providers we fund in this program will do the job.”

In addition, the FCC has created a Rural Broadband Accountability Plan, a new effort to monitor and ensure compliance for universal service high-cost programs including the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.

A fact sheet on the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan is available here: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-creates-rural-broadband-accountability-plan

The list of RDOF providers and funding amounts by state, is here: https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904