In its 9th round of program funding, the FCC is authorizing $199,336,695 through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) for new broadband deployments in 26 states and the Northern Mariana Islands bringing service to over 230,000 locations.
To date, the RDOF program has committed over $5.2 billion for broadband deployment to 3 million locations in 47 states and the Northern Mariana Islands.
“We need to connect everyone, everywhere, and today’s announcement will open new opportunities to serve communities that need high-speed, reliable broadband service,” said Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “We’re also working hard to make the best use of this funding to ensure that applicants meet their obligations and follow our rules. With proper oversight, this program can advance our goal of closing the digital divide.”
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In January, Rosenworcel established the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan, a new effort to monitor and ensure compliance for universal service high-cost programs, including the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and the Connect America Fund (CAF) Phase II Auction. The Plan established new transparency and audit and verification procedures that are publicly available so the public can track progress in these programs, such as the new deployment data in the CAF Phase II auction that is available here: https://www.usac.org/highcost/funds/caf-phase-ii-auction/
The FCC also announced a number of defaulted bids, making the census blocks in those defaulted bids potentially eligible for other funding programs. A list of the eligible census blocks previously covered by defaulted bids is available on the Auction 904 website under the “Results” tab, https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904/round-results.
https://www.fcc.gov/auction/904/round-results
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