FCC’s Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I Auction has allocated $9.2 billion to enable 49 states in rural America and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands to have access to high speed internet service. Thirteen states each received over $300 million to increase access to rural high speed internet while Arkansas received over $400 million.
Auction results released in December, show that bidders received funding to deploy high speed broadband to over 5.2 million unserved homes and businesses. Also, 99.7% of the locations will receive broadband with speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps, with an overwhelming majority of 85% will get gigabit speed broadband.
For example, in the case of one state, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) https://www.michiganbusiness.org announced that the state secured nearly $363 million in funding so that nearly 250,000 locations in the state will now have expanded access to broadband.
Today, about 1,243,339 Michigan households do not have a permanent fixed broadband connection at home resulting in $1.8 billion to $2.7 billion in potential economic benefits unrealized among disconnected households.
To ensure that Michigan would be well represented in the auction was helped by efforts led by Connected Nation Michigan https://connectednation.org fall through their partnership with MEDC.
The federal funding will also build on the $12.7 million in Connecting Michigan Communities (CMIC) grants available through the Michigan Department of Technology, Management, and Budget announced in October. An additional $14.3 million in CMIC grant funding is authorized for projects in 2021.
In October 2020, the FCC adopted rules creating the 5G fund for Rural America, which will distribute up to $9 billion over the next decade to bring 5G wireless broadband connectivity to unserved areas in rural America.
Go to https://www.fcc.gov/aution/904 for more information on the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I Auction and the map detailing winning bids.