The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has denied waiver requests from Mediacom Wireless of Florida LLC (and a related entity in Georgia) and Consolidated Communications related to the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction.
The Mediacom entities requested a waiver of the requirement to certify that they offered service to 40% of the Connect America Cost Model (CAM)-estimated number of locations to which they committed by December 31, 2025, and/or an extension of the service milestone until June 30, 2026.
Consolidated Communications requested removal of a census block group (CBG) from its Texas RDOF service area so that it can come into compliance with the requirement to offer service to 60% of the model-estimated number of locations to which they were committed by December 31, 2025.
The FCC said that it did not find good cause to grant either RDOF waiver. However, it seems that it sought to make a point beyond judging the merits of the requests: The idea seems to be that RDOF was structured to minimize the number of petitions that would be submitted by establishing rules in which funding generally would be forthcoming.
“[T]he non-compliance framework the [FCC] adopted for the RDOF was designed to avoid altogether the burden of filing and addressing petitions such as these — carriers continue to receive the majority of funding except in the most serious of shortfalls, and they can quickly receive all funding by catching up on buildout,” the first paragraph of the decision reads.
“Nonetheless, we address these particular petitions, in part, in an effort to reiterate that point and emphasize that circumstances beyond a carrier’s control is a very high bar.”
Telecompetitor, working with exclusive access to analysis from the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, found that — as of February 2025 — bids associated with almost $112.8 million in RDOF funding were in default.
The fate of RDOF funding winners who do not meet their commitments always has been a difficult question. In May, 2024, the FCC passed on an amnesty proposal for service providers who fall into that category in either the RDOF and CAF II auctions.
