The following article was published by Policyband:
RDOF Winners: Broadband providers that won RDOF auctions run by the FCC in 2020 are now looking for a brief window to surrender some or all of the locations they promised to serve with broadband Internet. The hope is that the defaulted locations will be eligible to receive BEAD money. Not so fast, says the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC) and the Free State Foundation. NRTC said in an FCC filing yesterday that RDOF winners seeking amnesty want nothing more than a wrist slap in terms of a fine.
Meanwhile, Gigi Sohn, Executive Director of the American Association for Public Broadband, said the problem was that BEAD program money may not be used to furnish broadband in RDOF locations. If RDOF winners that won’t serve locations can’t exit the program and thus BEAD funding remains off limits, “this would be a ‘double whammy’ for some of the most disconnected rural communities in the nation,” Sohn told the FCC in support of amnesty.
The full article is available here.