In 2020, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) launched the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase I Auction (Auction 904). Overall, 180 bidders secured $9.2bn of support from the FCC, over a 10-year period, across 5.2 million locations throughout the United States.
The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction offers up to $16bn of support, paid over 10 years, to bidders that pledge to provide voice and broadband service to unserved census block areas. Indeed, unserved, is defined as locations having broadband download speeds of less than 25 megabits per second and upload speeds of less than 3 megabits per second.