The Federal Communications Commission has released a fact sheet and draft Connect America Fund Phase II Auction Public Notice – an item the Commission will consider at its January 30 Open Meeting. The draft Public Notice would:
- Timeline: Schedule the auction to commence on July 24, 2018, and establish a short-form application deadline of March 30, 2018.
- Minimum geographic area for bidding: Adopt census block groups as the minimum geographic area in which areas eligible for support can be grouped for bidding in the auction.
- Bidding procedures. Adopt a multi-round, descending clock auction structure. As the clock descends, bidders will indicate whether they will bid to provide service to an area at a given performance tier and latency. Support will be assigned to no more than one bidder per area. The auction will end after the aggregate support amount of all bids is less than or equal to the total budget and there is no longer competition for support in any area.
The draft item also discusses short- and long-form application requirements and reserve price calculation methodology.
