The FCC is ready to authorize more than $1.2 billion through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to fund new broadband deployments in 32 states. In what the agency says is the largest funding round to date, 23 broadband providers will bring broadband service to over one million locations. This is the sixth RDOF funding wave, bringing to more than $4 billion the Commission has awarded to winning bidders for new deployments.
The Commission also has created the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan, a new effort to monitor and ensure compliance for universal service high-cost programs including the RDOF. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said the new 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.”
The changes came about after groups such as Frontier, NTCA – the Rural Broadband Association, the Competitive Carriers Association and the Fiber Broadband Association questioned the qualifications of some awardees, Inside Towers reported.
The Rural Broadband Accountability Plan makes a number of changes and enhancements to existing audit and verification procedures, according to the agency, including:
- Increasing audits and verifications of support recipients – The number of audits and verifications will double in 2022 as compared to 2021, and include on-site audits as well as audits and verifications based upon random selection.
- Increasing audits and verifications of large and higher-risk support recipients – The largest dollar recipients will be subject to an on-site audit in at least one state and higher-risk recipients will be subject to additional audits and verifications.
- Increasing program transparency – For the first time, results of verifications, audits, and speed and latency performance testing will be made public on USAC’s website.
The FCC continues to review and process long-form applications on a rolling basis. A list of RDOF providers and funding amounts by state is here.
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