The Federal Communications Commission’s Wireline Competition Bureau has adopted an Order denying waiver requests filed by North Alabama Electric Cooperative (NAEC) and Sandhill Connextions, LLC regarding the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund support recovery rules. Both companies had won bids in the RDOF auction and were authorized to receive funding for broadband deployment but later defaulted on their obligations – NAEC on 879 locations in Alabama and Sandhill on one model-estimated location in South Carolina. NAEC notified the Commission that it did not intend to meet its RDOF obligations in certain locations whereas Sandhill notified the FCC that it was withdrawing from the RDOF program entirely given that there were no locations in its funded service area.
In submitting the waiver requests, the entities argued that the FCC’s required support recovery rule was unreasonable and sought alternative calculations or reduced penalties. The Bureau concluded that the defaults resulted from insufficient due diligence rather than special circumstances and that granting relief would undermine auction integrity and the public interest. The Bureau noted that the entities remain subject to standard non-compliance measures, including repayment of support received. The Bureau emphasized that the bidders had full notice of obligations and penalties, and that preserving program integrity outweighs the purported harm to the carriers.
