Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force: Intra-Agency Coordination of High-Cost Universal Service Fund Reverse Auctions Michael Janson, Director Kirk Burgee & Jonathan McCormack, Deputy Directors Audra Hale-Maddox, Chief of Staff FCC Open Meeting  January 13, 2021 Rural Broadband Auctions Task Force (RBATF) " Established in 2017 to oversee use of competitive bidding to allocate USF high-cost support to unserved & underserved areas " Has administered / overseen: ª% CAF Phase II (Auction 903), ª% Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I (Auction 904), ª% Mobile High-Cost Support Reform and Establishment of the 5G Fund for Rural America " Coordination has involved nearly 100 staff across multiple Bureaus / Offices, including: ª% WCB, OEA, WTB, IB, EB, MB, CGB, OET, OCBO, OLA, and OGC 1 CAF Phase II (Auction 903) " First multiple-round, reverse auction to award high-cost USF ongoing support to deploy fixed broadband service to unserved areas. " Innovative use of weighted tiers encouraged participation from a range of companies and technologies " Bidding completed in August 2018 ª% Awarded $1.48 billion to 103 winning bidders to serve over 700,000 locations in 45 states ª% 99.75% of support awarded to provide speeds of 25 / 3 Mbps or higher " As of January 2021, 99% of support has been authorized 2 CAF Phase II (Auction 903) " First multiple-round, reverse auction to award high-cost USF ongoing support to deploy fixed broadband service to unserved areas. " Innovative use of weighted tiers encouraged participation from a range of companies and technologies " Bidding completed in August 2018 ª% Awarded $1.48 billion to 103 winning bidders to serve over 700,000 locations in 45 states ª% 99.75% of support awarded to provide speeds of 25 / 3 Mbps or higher " As of January 2021, 99% of support has been authorized 3 Wind River Internet, a tribally owned provider, was awarded $4.1 million in CAF II/Auction 903 to bring broadband to more than 800 homes and businesses on Wind River Reservation in rural Wyoming 4 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I (Auction 904) " Built on successful CAF Phase II / Auction 903 model " Similar to Auction 903, weighted tiers encouraged participation of companies using different technologies ª% Advantage given to bidders offering higher speeds and lower latencies " Bidding completed on November 25, 2020 ª% Awarded $9.23 billion to 180 winning bidders to serve 5.2 million unserved locations in 49 states and one territory for fixed broadband and voice services ª% 99.7% of support awarded to locations to provide speeds of 100 / 20 Mbps or higher, with 84.8% to locations for gigabit broadband 5 RDOF Phase I / Auction 904 Winning Bids Performance Tier Gigabit; low latency Above baseline; low latency Above baseline; high latency Baseline; low latency Minimum; low latency No Winning Bidder 6 Mobile High-Cost Support Reform " Mobility Fund Phase II Challenge Process (2018) ª% Developed online portal to validate, accept, and process mobile speed tests challenging the accuracy of carrier-submitted mobile 4G LTE coverage maps ª% Accepted 20.7 million speed tests from 24 challengers across 38 states " Mobility Fund Phase II Investigation Staff Report (2019) ª% Field agents conducted 25,000 speed tests driving over 10,000 miles ª% Investigation found that mobile coverage was overstated by multiple carriers " 5G Fund for Rural America (2020) ª% 5G Fund for Rural America adopted to replace Mobility Fund Phase II ª% Two-phase multi-round reverse auction approach ª% Total budget of $9 billion to award support to deploy 5G services ª% Adopted public interest obligations for legacy high-cost support 7 beginning January 1, 2021 5G Fund Phase I and Phase II " 5G Fund Phase I: ª% Up to $8 billion over 10 years ª% Support to deploy mobile 5G service ª% Areas eligible for support based upon mobile coverage data collected through Digital Opportunity Data Collection " 5G Fund Phase II: ª% Auction budget will be $1 billion + remainder of Phase I budget ª% Support for network deployments that facilitate precision agriculture ª% Will include any eligible areas that went unsold in the Phase I auction 8