FCC Launches New $20.4B Rural Digital Opportunity Fund to Subsidize Broadband Networks in Areas Without 25/3 Mbps

The FCC approved and released an order that will inject $20.4 billion in funding for the deployment of networks for the provision of high-speed broadband internet access and voice services in areas that are otherwise too costly to be adequately served by the market (typically, rural areas).

Although publicly funding voice communications networks in high cost areas is a long-standing policy in the United States, in 2011 the FCC adopted a new approach. The agency decided to focus high cost funding on the upgrading of those networks so that they would be capable of providing high-speed internet access services in addition to voice, as well as targeting funding to areas that are otherwise unserved by unsubsidized competitors at the requisite speeds.

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