The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Office of Economics and Analytics (OEA) and Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) have adopted adjustment factor values for the 5G Fund for Rural America in order to more efficiently direct support to harder-to-serve areas. The adjustment factor values will increase support levels for bids to serve areas where the terrain elevation variation and market demand raise expected costs of deploying 5G networks in those areas. More specifically, the terrain elevation variation is intended to account for differing terrain characteristics across areas while the market demand factor is intended to account for differences in expected revenues across areas. These adjustment factor values will be used both in the auction bidding process as well as in the methodology for disaggregating legacy support.
