The Federal Communications Commission awarded $9.2 billion Dec. 7 to fund the development of high-speed broadband networks for more than 10 million rural Americans across the country.
Under the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund, the FCC will grant internet service providers the $9.2 billion to build the rural broadband networks over the next 10 years. The companies bid against each other in an auction created to award the funding to the company willing to develop the fastest network in each area at the lowest cost.
The auction covered more than five million households and businesses across 49 states, and in about 85 percent of locations, the internet service providers committed to securing gigabit-speed broadband. Most of the remaining locations will get download speeds of at least 100 megabits per second, which provides download speeds faster than dial-up internet.