FCC Fiscal Year 2021 Budget and 5G Strategy Hearing

• •The FCC requests a total budget of $343 million for salaries and expenses for fiscal year 2021.
• •The FCC requests an auction spending cap of $134,495,000.
• •The budget proposal includes a $4 million increase for general spending and a $2 million increase for the spectrum auction cap.
• •The Rural Digital Opportunity Fund will provide over $20 billion over 10 years to support gigabit service for up to 6 million rural homes and businesses.
• •The FCC plans to use a two-phase reverse auction process to distribute rural broadband funding.
• •The C-band auction is scheduled to begin on December 8, making 280 megahertz of spectrum available for 5G.
• •A 3.5 gigahertz auction is scheduled to begin on June 25, making 70 megahertz of spectrum available.
• •The FCC reported that 5G spectrum auctions over the last 16 months generated over $10 billion in gross proceeds.
• •The FCC is implementing a 'Digital Opportunity Data Collection' program to gather granular broadband deployment data.
• •The FCC is reserving the upper 200 megahertz of the C-band for incumbent users.

The FCC is requesting a $4 million budget increase and a $2 million increase in its auction spending cap to fund staff pay raises, IT modernization, and the rollout of high-speed internet to rural areas.

Patterns POLISCOPE noticed across the record. These are observations to investigate, not conclusions.