RDOF Coalition Defends Petition for Additional Support

A coalition of FCC Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Phase I auction winners pushed back on WTA's opposition to an emergency petition for additional RDOF support, citing a "perfect storm and tidal waves of massive cost increases," in reply comments posted Friday in docket 19-126 (see 2307280064). "WTA is fundamentally and profoundly wrong that the massive broadband construction cost-increases now faced by the RDOF winners were somehow foreseeable at the time bids were submitted in the RDOF Phase I auctions," the coalition said. The group argued additional support should be allowed for winners where "there was an extraordinary and unprecedented event that results in exponential price increases," such as the COVID-19 pandemic.