Since Jessica Rosenworcel became FCC Chairwoman in January, the agency has been working to root out applicants provisionally awarded financial support through its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program that allegedly can’t prove they can deliver the broadband services they claimed. The agency rejected two big initial winners on Wednesday — Starlink and LTD Broadband. Doubters had long questioned whether the two companies could actually deploy what they promised in RDOF applications, Inside Towers reported.
The initial auction results were announced December 7, 2020. LTD Broadband, the largest awardee, provisionally won more than $1.3 billion. Starlink, the orbital satellite division of SpaceX, took second place with an initial award of more than $885 million.
RDOF provides $9.23 billion in subsidies to be distributed over a decade to support broadband deployment. Initial awards were made as a result of a “reverse” auction in which service providers bid for projects using the least amount of federal dollars. Continue Reading |
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