ADTRAN Delivers RDOF Solution Portfolio for Service Providers

ADTRAN®, Inc., is offering the industry’s broadest portfolio of broadband access solutions available for the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) program and has introduced RDOF Technical Assistance for service providers looking to bid in the 2020 auction.

ADTRAN’s domain experience, technical expertise and portfolio breadth empowers service providers with the full spectrum of qualifiable RDOF broadband access solutions and support to address the wide range of geographic and network topologies, along with subscriber densities found within the RDOF-eligible locations.

According to the FCC, there are approximately 19 million Americans who still lack high-speed internet access. RDOF will provide $20.4 billion in funding over 10 years to encourage and support broadband delivery in rural communities across the country.

Phase I will target nearly 5.5 million homes and businesses that were previously unserved by voice and broadband speeds of at least 25Mbps. The first auction is scheduled for October 29, 2020, with the short-form application window open from July 1 to July 15, 2020.

Service providers considering participation in the RDOF auctions may need assistance in supporting the technical case for the solutions they plan to bid, especially in the case when fiber extension technologies are required, such as Gigabit Gfast, mesh millimeter wave and Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) fixed wireless access (FWA) solutions. The short-form application requires specific technical information and deployment data for the FCC to fully evaluate their application to bid in the auction.

ADTRAN’s RDOF Technical Assistance team has curated technical information to assist service providers in completing their short-form submissions.

“Within the last decade, ADTRAN has partnered with over 500 service providers to enable over 1,000 gigabit communities and connect over 100 million homes and businesses. This year’s FCC Auction 904 and RDOF will enable many more communities to realize the valuable impact of broadband,” said Robert Conger, CTO Americas and Head of Portfolio Strategy at ADTRAN. “Rural service providers have long benefited from ADTRAN’s extensive broadband access network experience, and our RDOF Technical Assistance team exists to address many operators’ chief consideration as they prepare for the RDOF bidding process—creating the most robust auction bid strategy possible.”

ADTRAN’s comprehensive portfolio of access architectures and solutions provides multiple solution options to address each performance tier and the widely varying geographic-eligible location topologies. The RDOF-compliant access solutions and technology options include:

For the Gigabit (1Gbps/500Mbps) Performance Tier:

•Fiber-to-the-Premise (FTTP) solutions using either GPON, 10G XGS-PON or Combo PON technologies
•Fiber Extension solutions using either 2nd generation Gfast or 60GHz mesh millimeter wave FWA technologies

For the Above Baseline (100Mbps/20Mbps), Baseline (50Mbps/5Mbps) and Minimum (25Mbps/3Mbps) Tiers:

•Fiber-to-the-Node (FTTN) solutions using vectored VDSL2 technology
•Fixed Wireless solutions using LTE-based technology over CBRS and unlicensed spectrum

In addition, ADTRAN offers a full suite of RDOF-focused services and support ranging from field surveys and planning to site commissioning and subscriber provisioning backed by a proven model and established partnerships.