Rep. Gabe Firment
Dist. 22
The Federal Communications Commission(FCC) recently announced that Natchitoches Parish was allocated $13,456,731 in the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Auction to provide high speed internet to 4,733 unserved/underserved locations. Eligible locations include areas around the rural communities of Goldonna, Lakeview, Fairview Alpha, Clarence and Readhimer. The winning bidders in Natchitoches Parish were Segnem Egere Consortium, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation and AMG Technology Investment Group. The winning bidders have six years to complete the build out, but there are significant incentives to complete the work faster.
The FCC website contains an interactive map that allows addresses to be entered to determine if that location is eligible for funding and who the winning bidder for that particular census tract was. The interactive map can be found at https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/rdof-phase-i-dec-2020/. In Louisiana, the RDOF auction allocated $342,207,315.20 in support to expand broadband to 175,692 unserved homes and businesses over the next 10 years. Nearly all locations in Louisiana that were eligible for the auction will be receiving access to broadband with speeds of at least 100/20 Mbps, with an overwhelming majority (82%) getting gigabit-speed broadband.