The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund is the Commission’s next step in bridging the digital divide. The $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund will bring high speed fixed broadband service to rural homes and small businesses that lack it, building on the success of the CAF Phase II auction by using reverse auctions in two phases. The Phase I auction, Auction 904, allocated $9.2 billion in support to bring high-speed broadband to over 5.2 million unserved homes and businesses, almost 99% of the locations available in the auction, to close the digital divide in 49 states and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
Competitive bidding brought the auction in significantly under budget, allocating $9.2 billion in support out of the $16 billion set aside for the Phase I auction. The $6.8 billion in potential Phase I support that was not allocated will be rolled over into the future Phase II auction, which now can draw upon a budget of up to $11.2 billion in targeting partially-served areas and the few unserved areas that did not receive funding through Phase I.