FCC Authorizes $524M Rural Broadband Spending in 23 States
Rural broadband providers will start receiving funding this month in the third wave of last year's Connect America Fund Phase II auction, the FCC said Monday. This wave allocates $524 million in USF spending to expand broadband to more than…
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200,000 homes and businesses in 23 states. In the latest wave, the FCC authorized $39.2 million for broadband deployment in 26 rural New York counties through winning bidders Gtel, MTC Cable, Ostego Electric Cooperative, Slic and Verizon, the agency said, all of which bid to deliver downstream speeds of at least 100 Mbps and upstream speeds of 20 Mbps. Over the next several months, the FCC is expected to approve additional applications of winning bidders from last fall's auctions and authorize remaining funding totaling $1.488 billion to support broadband expansion to more than 700,000 rural locations over 10 years. Eventually, CAF could be replaced by a new 10-year, $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund proposed earlier this year at the White House (see 1904120065). Commissioners are expected to vote at the Aug. 1 meeting whether to release an NPRM, currently in draft form, on the RDOF (see 1907110031).