FCC Announces Winners Of Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I Auction
December 7, 2020 – The Federal Communications Commission (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, which include ILECs, fixed wireless providers, cable companies, and satellite broadband providers.
In total, these winning bidders were awarded $9.23 billion in 10-year support to bring broadband service to 5,220,833 locations in 49 states and one territory.
A list of the winning bidders is available here. An interactive map of the RDOF auction results is available on the FCC’s Auction 904 web page.
Here are the biggest winners:
Source: Public Notice, DA 20-1422, Attachment A
Of the 5,295,771 locations in the 61,766 eligible census block groups, approximately 99% of the locations are covered by winning bids. Winning bids for downstream speeds of at least 100 Mbps cover 99.7% of these locations, with over 85% of locations covered by winning bids for Gigabit speed service. The Gigabit performance tier requires a winning bidder to provide broadband service at speeds of at least 1 Gbps downstream and 500 Mbps upstream, with a monthly usage allowance of at least 2 terabytes (TB).
A summary of the results by state is available here. Here are the 14 states that will receive the most support:
Source: Public Notice, DA 20-1422, Attachment B
Winning bidders are required to submit a post-auction long-form application (FCC Form 683) no later than January 29, 2021. The Auction 904 long-form application filing instructions are available here. Winning bidders that wish to assign some or all of their winning bids to related entities must do so by December 22, 2020, using the Divide Winning Bids process. Additional information is available from the FCC’s Public Notice.
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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.
