UPDATE: FCC Rejects LTD Broadband’s Long-Form Application For Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Support

August 10, 2022 – The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced it is rejecting LTD Broadband LLC’s long-form application to receive Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction support. The announcement was made in an FCC News Release.

UPDATE: FCC Denies LTD Broadband’s ETC Waiver Request For Iowa, Nebraska, & North Dakota; LTD Stripped Of $64.9 Million In RDOF Support

October 20, 2021 – The FCC has denied LTD Broadband’s request for waiver of the RDOF auction’s 180-day ETC deadline with respect to the states of Iowa, Nebraska, and North Dakota. LTD Broadband will lose 64.9 million in RDOF support for those three states.

UPDATE: LTD Broadband To Lose RDOF Support In California, Kansas, and Oklahoma – A Total Of $271.8 Million

July 26, 2021 – LTD Broadband LLC, the biggest winner in the FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction, has been denied a waiver of a key RDOF deadline. As a consequence of that decision, LTD Broadband will be in default of its RDOF winning bids in California, Kansas, and Oklahoma. In total, LTD Broadband will be stripped of $271.8 million in RDOF support.

UPDATE: Minnesota & Iowa State Associations Petition FCC To Deny LTD Broadband RDOF Applications

March 23, 2021 – The Minnesota Telecom Alliance and the Iowa Communications Alliance have filed a petition with the FCC seeking to deny LTD Broadband, LLC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I Auction long-form applications for support in Iowa and Minnesota.

December 7, 2020 – The FCC has announced the results of Auction 904 – the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I auction.[1] Bidding concluded on November 25, 2020.

There were 180 winning bidders, with the 10-year support amount totaling $9.23 billion and covering 5,220,833 locations in 49 states and one territory. The exact amount of awarded support is $ 9,230,688,714.90.

A list of the winning bidders is available here. An interactive map of the RDOF auction results is available on the Auction 904 web page. A summary of the results by state is available here.

LTD Broadband LLC - $ 1.32 Billion!

One of the biggest RDOF Phase I auction winners is LTD Broadband LLC. It was a winning bidder in 15 states, with 10-year support totaling $1,320,920,718.20 to serve 528,088 locations. Based on a very quick look at the FCC’s RDOF results map, it appears all (or nearly all?) of LTD Broadband’s winning bids are for service meeting the Gigabit performance tier. Who is LTD Broadband and where will it be deploying new service? Let’s take a look.

LTD Broadband was formed in October 2010 in Nevada. According to its website, LTD Broadband has “over 1800 tower sites in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin covering over 50,000 square miles.”[2] LTD Broadband claims to be “the 4th largest fixed-wireless WISP in the US.” It’s unclear if that’s by coverage area or customers served, or some other metric. The website broadbandnow.com says LTD Broadband’s service “is available to an estimated 1.6 million people, making it the 31st largest residential fixed wireless provider in the U.S. by coverage area.” The site also has some additional information on LTD’s service.

Here is a map of LTD Broadband’s current coverage area:

 LTD’s website lists four broadband service plans: (1) Faster – 6/1 Mbps, from $50/month; (2) Family – 10/2 Mbps, from $70/month; (3) Ultra – 25/3 Mbps, from $80/month; and (4) Business – speeds of up to 500 Mbps, with custom pricing.[3]

On its RDOF Phase I auction short-form, LTD Broadband applied to place bids in the “Above Baseline” and “Gigabit” performance tiers in the following 16 states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. LTD won support in all of these states except Arizona.

Above Baseline requires broadband service at speeds of at least 100 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream, with a monthly usage allowance of at least 2 terabytes (TB). The Gigabit performance tier requires broadband service at speeds of at least 1 Gbps downstream and 500 Mbps upstream, with a monthly usage allowance of at least 2 TB.

LTD’s RDOF short-form shows that LTD will use Optical Carrier/Fiber to the End User to provide Gigabit service, and terrestrial fixed wireless to cover any Above Baseline winning bids. Here are the details on LTD Broadband’s winning bids:

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[1] Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I Auction (Auction 904) Closes; Winning Bidders Announced; FCC Form 683 Due January 29, 2021, AU Docket No. 20-34, WC Docket 19-126, WC Docket No. 10-90, Public Notice, DA 20-1422, (Dec. 7, 2020), https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-1422A1.pdf.

[2] ltdbroadband.com, About, Growth, https://ltdbroadband.com/about (Dec. 7, 2020).

[3] ltdbroadband.com, Services, Plans, https://ltdbroadband.com/plans (Dec. 7, 2020).