The following article was published by Light Reading:
In a letter sent today to the FCC, a coalition of nearly 70 broadband industry groups, ISPs, community leaders and nonprofits is requesting the FCC grant a short amnesty period for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) winners to relinquish their awards without stiff penalties, in order to make those locations available for Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) funding.
The letter is the result of growing concern about providers defaulting on their RDOF awards, as well as Connect America Fund II (CAF II) awards. Since BEAD rules stipulate that locations already awarded funding through federal programs such as RDOF and CAF II are ineligible for BEAD funding, those locations – some of the most rural and hard-to-reach locations in the country – are at risk of being left out of getting connected at all.
The full article is available here.