The FCC will authorize more than $313 million to increase rural broadband access, the agency announced today.
This will be the eighth round of funding through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) which has provided over $5 billion in funding for new broadband developments in 47 states. In total, the FCC plans to authorize a total of $20.4 billion over 10 years to provide underserved Americans with internet speeds of at least 25 Mbps.
“The funding announced today will help hundreds of thousands of Americans get access to high-speed, reliable broadband service,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “We continue our expanded oversight of this program through the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan to make sure that applicants deliver services as promised to areas that truly need help.”
The RDOF used census data to determine blocks in every county that lack quality broadband access and is auctioning government funds to companies to build networks to serve these areas. According to the FCC, the auction process placed priority on networks with faster download and upload speed but with low latency levels. Ideally, this would encourage companies to use more future-proof network technologies like fiber “so that those benefiting from these networks will be able to use tomorrow’s internet applications as well as today’s.”
In the latest funding announcement, the FCC also said it was conducting “exhaustive technical, financial, and legal review of all winning bidders” and would deny winning bids that have not secured proper state authorization.
