The Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force (RBATF), Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB), and the Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued the Auction 904 Ninth Ready-to-Authorize Public Notice announcing they are ready to authorize $199,336,695 over 10 years through the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) to fund new broadband deployments to over 230,000 locations in 26 states and the Northern Mariana Islands. The applicants are listed in Attachment A, and they will be authorized if they submit acceptable irrevocable stand-by letter(s) of credit and Bankruptcy Code opinion letter(s) from their legal counsel for each state where they have winning bids that are ready to be authorized prior to 6:00 p.m. ET on May 17, 2022. Several of the applicants that may now be authorized to receive RDOF support were granted waivers of the deadline for obtaining Eligible Telecommunications Carrier (ETC) approval. The Public Notice also includes a list of census blocks in Attachment B on which the winning RDOF bidder has defaulted. The accompanying News Release states that the FCC has now “committed over $5.2 billion [in RDOF funding] for broadband deployment to 3 million locations in 47 States and the Northern Mariana Islands.”
