FCC announces over $1.2 bn for rural broadband in 32 states

The United States Federal Communications Commission said it will authorize over $1.2 billion for rural broadband in 32 states.
This, as part of the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, is the largest funding round to date, FCC said. The development will enable 23 broadband providers to bring broadband service to over 1 million locations across the US.

The Commission also has created the Rural Broadband Accountability Plan, a new effort to monitor and ensure compliance for universal service high-cost programs including the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, said FCC Chairwoman Rosenworcel.

“The new Rural Broadband Accountability Plan will speed up our audit and verification processes and for the first time make public the results of verifications, audits, and speed and latency testing. These new measures will help ensure that the providers we fund in this program will do the job.”

With today’s sixth funding wave, FCC has now announced over $4 billion in funding to winning bidders for new deployments.