RDOF broadband fund saw $3.3B in ISP defaults, leaving 1.9M rural locations stranded

The FCC's Rural Digital Opportunity Fund awarded $9.2 billion to ISPs to build broadband in underserved areas. As of 2025, $3.3 billion of those awards have defaulted -- ISPs took the money (or won the auction) and never built the infrastructure. 1.9 million of the 5.2 million eligible locations are no longer scheduled to receive service. Three companies alone (Starry, Starlink, and LTD Broadband) account for $2.5 billion of the defaults. States like California (94% default), Massachusetts (89% default), and New Jersey (100% default) are catastrophically affected. The real pain: rural residents in these areas were told broadband was coming, some turned down other options or made housing decisions based on that promise, and now they face years more of no service while the FCC claws back funds and re-auctions. The first deployment deadline (40% of locations by December 31, 2024) has passed, revealing the full scale of non-compliance. This persists because RDOF's auction mechanism rewarded the lowest bidder regardless of feasibility, and the FCC lacked rigorous vetting of bidders' technical and financial capacity.