The American Association for Public Broadband submitted comment to the FCC in response to the March 5 Public Notice on RDOF amnesty.
From the comments:
"The February 28 Letter makes crystal clear why this relief – whether you call it 'limited amnesty,' a 'grace period' or an 'early buy back' is in the public interest. Unless the FCC provides an incentive for RDOF and CAF II awardees who will not build their promised networks to relinquish those locations, they will remain unserved because any location that is encumbered by an 'enforceable federal, state, or local commitment to deploy qualifying broadband' is not eligible to receive funding from the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program. 2 As the letter states – this would be a 'double whammy' for some of the most disconnected rural communities in the nation."
"One need not relitigate whether the RDOF or the CAF II programs were good or bad policy for the Commission to rectify a real problem – large swaths of rural America that stand to miss out the huge investment Congress has made in broadband in the United States. The FCC has the power to make this unfortunate situation much better for all Americans."
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