The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released its final list of eligible census blocks and block groups for the Connect America Fund Phase 2 (CAF II) Auction. The list reflects data from the FCC Form 477 filings reflecting December 2016 broadband deployment.
Nationwide, the total number of eligible blocks dropped by nearly one third from 317,243 to 214,052, a net reduction of 103,191 blocks. The number of block groups, which will be the minimum geographic bidding units, declined by 17%, from the preliminary list of 36,725 to 30,310 in the final list. All 11,692 of the blocks in New York State (1,015 block groups) were removed due to the carve-out of CAF II funding that will be allocated to the NY Broadband Program. The largest reduction of blocks occurred in Illinois which is lower by 16,499, nearly 16% of the total.
In relative terms, the biggest winner among the states was Hawaii. Its number of eligible blocks nearly tripled 226 to 670, and its total available CAF II funding support increased by more than 100%, from about $1.2 million to over $2.5 million. Other states that picked up additional supported block groups were Arizona, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, North and South Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. However, among these states, the amount of available funding declined in Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
All other states show reductions in eligible block and block group counts. This may indicate substantial advances in broadband deployment since the original list was released, or increased accuracy of the data carriers are submitting on Form 477. TMI’s GIS and Data Analytics team will be crunching through the numbers over the next week to analyze the changes.
Subscribers to TMI’s Broadband Mapping Service (CAF II Maps) will see the new data reflected in their map portal by the end of next week. We will also identify the blocks which were added or deleted. We will retain the existing map with the preliminary block list for reference, so subscribers can do side-by-side comparisons. Clients of TMI’s CAF II Auction Support Service will be hearing directly from us.
Download a copy of TMI's Comparison of CAF II Auction Blocks table here!
More to come:
In upcoming blog posts we will dig into the Block Groups, which are the bidding units for the auction, more analysis of the changes to the block counts, TMI’s CAF II Broadband Mapping tools, and the auction process.
