{"id":58843,"date":"2020-10-14T17:56:44","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T09:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/hughes-spacex-and-viasat-to-compete-for-rural-digital-opportunity-fund-subsidies\/"},"modified":"2020-10-14T17:56:44","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T09:56:44","slug":"hughes-spacex-and-viasat-to-compete-for-rural-digital-opportunity-fund-subsidies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/hughes-spacex-and-viasat-to-compete-for-rural-digital-opportunity-fund-subsidies\/","title":{"rendered":"Hughes, SpaceX, and Viasat to Compete for Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Subsidies"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_292421\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-292421\" style=\"width: 800px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-292421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.satellitetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/FCC.jpg\" alt=\"Federal Communications Commission. Photo: FCC\" width=\"800\" height=\"534\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.satellitetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/FCC.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.satellitetoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/FCC-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-292421\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Federal Communications Commission. Photo: FCC<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p><b>Hughes Network Systems<\/b>, <b>SpaceX<\/b>, and <b>Viasat<\/b> are qualified to bid in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase 1 auction to bridge the digital divide, the<b> FCC<\/b> announced Tuesday. The satellite operators are among 386 companies qualified to receive up to $20.4 billion to connect unserved areas in the United States with broadband service.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Phase 1 auction, in which companies bid on areas to receive subsidies to provide service, is scheduled to begin Oct. 29. Funds of $16 billion are available in Phase 1, which will target more than six million homes and businesses in census blocks that are unserved by voice and broadband with download speeds of at least 25 Mbps. The FCC will give priority to bids for higher speeds, up to 1 Gbps, and lower latency.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Hughes and Viasat provide satellite internet service from Geostationary (GEO) satellites. Viasat announced earlier this year it is looking to build a Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation for broadband, subsidized by RDOF.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Hughes, which invested in the consortium to acquire <b>OneWeb<\/b>, may use OneWeb\u2019s LEO satellites to augment service from its satellites in GEO in order to offer lower latency, Hughes President Pradman Kaul said during Hughes\u2019 August Second Quarter (Q2) earnings call, Space News reported. OneWeb satellites do not provide commercial service yet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX is building out its Starlink constellation of LEO satellites for broadband internet. The constellation is not yet in commercial service, but SpaceX plans to begin beta testing soon.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>FCC Chairman Ajit Pai called this the FCC\u2019s \u201cbiggest and boldest step\u201d to bridge the digital divide.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe unprecedented interest in this auction is due in large part to key decisions by the FCC, including providing substantial funding and promoting technological neutrality toward potential bidding participants, as well as our staff\u2019s extensive work to spread awareness of the program and ensure the broadest participation in a competitive auction that will deliver real benefits to rural Americans across the country,\u201d Pai said in a news release. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Federal Communications Commission. Photo: FCC Hughes Network Systems, SpaceX, and Viasat are qualified to bid in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) Phase 1 auction to bridge the digital divide, the FCC announced Tuesday. The satellite operators are among 386 companies qualified to receive up to $20.4 billion to connect unserved areas in the United [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58843"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58843\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}