The FCC has announced the latest winning bidders of a $313 million pot from the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.
The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund aims to fund new broadband deployments in areas across the US with limited or no connectivity.
Now in its eighth round, the fund has provided over $5 billion in funding to date for new deployments across 47 states—bringing broadband to over 2.8 million locations.
The winning bidders from the latest round are:
- Carolina Telephone and Telegraph
- Central Telephone Company of Virginia
- Central Virginia Services
- CenturyLink of Louisiana
- CenturyTel of Alabama
- CenturyTel of Michigan
- CenturyTel of Montana
- CenturyTel of Northwest Arkansas
- CenturyTel of the Midwest – Wisconsin
- CenturyTel of Washington
- Co-Mo Comm
- Columbia Fiber
- Embarq Florida
- Jasper County Rural Electric Membership Corporation
- LigTel Communications
- OzarksGo
- Qwest Corporation
- South Central ConnectSpectra Communications Group
- Tri-County Electric Cooperative
Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman of the FCC, said:
“The funding announced today will help hundreds of thousands of Americans get access to high-speed, reliable broadband service.
We continue our expanded oversight of this program through the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan to make sure that applicants deliver services as promised to areas that truly need help.”
The FCC says that it’s continuing to monitor and ensure compliance with the initiative’s rules through the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan and other oversight measures.
The regulator says that it sent letters to 197 applicants concerning areas where there was evidence of existing service or questions of waste.
Funds worth almost $370 million to winning bidders have also been denied where they’ve “not made appropriate efforts to secure state approvals or prosecute their applications.”
The FCC promises all winning bidders are subject to an “exhaustive” technical, financial, and legal review.