The FCC said it is ready to authorize just over $640,000 in Connect America Fund CAF II funding to Mid-Hudson Data Corp. for rural broadband deployments in rural New York. The deployment targets 459 locations that currently lack broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream. If Mid-Hudson receives final approval, it will collect the money over a 10-year period.
The CAF II program awarded a total of about $1.488 billion through a competitive bidding process. The FCC conducted a reverse auction for all states except New York, where decisions were made at the state level. The reason was that the state had already made $500 million available for rural broadband funding, and plans on how to award it was farther along at the time the FCC began planning the CAF II auction. Accordingly, the FCC gave the state responsibility for awarding up to $170 million in CAF II funding that had been earmarked for the state.
CAF II New York
As with the broader CAF II auction, funding for unserved areas of rural New York was awarded to the entities that committed to deploying broadband at the lowest level of support. Winners included Verizon, Frontier, Hughes Network Systems, TDS, Windstream and lesser known providers such as Mid-Hudson.
The FCC previously authorized CAF II funding for some New York winners. And in late December, the commission said it was ready to authorize funding for several other New York auction winners, including Hughes.
The commission says it is ready to authorize funding when it has reviewed and approved an entity’s long-form application. The entity must then obtain appropriate letters of credit and bankruptcy opinion letters in order to gain final authorization.
The majority of CAF II funding has been authorized, but the commission continues to make announcements such as the one today on an approximately monthly basis.
