A clawback of the full amount initially granted out, as well as punitive fines against the revenue from customers in census blocks they were supposed to upgrade but kept extracting profits from through their ancient existent infrastructure seems like a good start.
Some of these rural places they bid on are so rural that in their mind it is cost prohibitive to incur the expenses of bringing them the service. In their life time of being a customer, they will not likely pay enough to cover that initial construction cost. This is why I'm sure the bean counters have said to just ignore them and pay the fines. It'll be cheaper in the long run for the company.
So maybe make the fines the equivelant to all of the construction fees they are trying to avoid by reneging on their bids + a severe penalty. Make it so that it is more financially attractive to do what they promised.
you bid on it so someone else can't get it before you do. you then hope that there's going to be a way to make it work, but in the end, you realize it's just not going to happen. so now, you just take the fine and walk away
Because the team drafting the grant application isn't the same team that's evaluating the feasibility of doing the work.
Honestly - if it's anything at all like some of the companies I've peripherally worked for around government grants, the team seeking grants doesn't actually give a flying fuck if they can do the work. Their job is to secure as much grant funding as possible, any way possible.
Implementation planning only happens after securing the grant. At that point it's far too late.
Also, you may know there are certain areas required by the bid that are less desirable. As long as there is enough desirable in the there to make up whatever punative fines will be levied for failing on the other areas, then it's still a win for the company
I'm pretty sure no money was initially granted out because these ISPs defaulted before it got to that point. In that context I think these fines are fair.
Now I want to know what process the FCC has for re-bidding those defaulted areas.
Before the RDOF auction began there was a controversy about the FCC not having accurate service coverage data to determine what census tracts should be eligible for the program. The result was that something like $16 billion would be paid out in this first round of auction, and $4 billion was held back for a second auction to fill the gaps once we had more accurate data. Then the bidding actually went low enough that the FCC was able to cover all their first-round goals with just $9 billion, leaving $11 billion for the second round. My understanding is that any areas (and clawed back funds) that weren't serviced during the first round will go back into the pot for the next round.
