Wireless 20/20 recently published an Analyst Angle column that identified many of the challenges winners of the FCC RDOF (Rural Digital Opportunity Fund) Reverse Auction may have to face, to meet their performance commitments. This stresses the critical need for due diligence to discern the good RDOF investment opportunities from the bad.
This web page presents the Wireless 20/20 portfolio of software tools to assist investors in performing due diligence on RDOF winners now seeking funding, including letters of credits from banks and investors to fund these network buildouts and qualify for the FCC subsidy.
A recent white paper from the NRECA (National Rural Electric Cooperative Association) asked the FCC to undertake a comprehensive review of the detailed technology and business plans in the long-form applications submitted by winning bidders proposing Gigabit tier fixed wireless and hybrid fixed wireless solutions. The recent CoBank report entitled RDOF Broadband Results Raise Concerns About Execution, Financial Risk raised many of the same questions.
An interactive demonstration of the WiROI™ RDOF Lite Business Case Analysis Tool is available which allows potential investors to evaluate the results for all 180 award winners, including the assigned funding, the number of locations, and the service levels they have committed to deploy. The results can be evaluated overall or by state. This interactive dashboard enables an investor to evaluate the critical award dollars per location metrics for each winner, which is a measure of the challenges they may face in fulfilling their obligations.
WiROI™ RDOF Lite Business Case Analysis Tool GUI
Presentation PDF: RDOF Auction 904 Postmortem Summary
Click on the image below to download the Wireless 20/20 Presentation PDF - RDOF Auction 904 Postmortem Summary.
This includes a series of custom Google Earth and QGIS mapping files for each of the top 10 RDOF winners developed using the Wireless 20/20 WiROI db RDOF Mapping Tool. The mapping tool shows the location of each of the CBGs where a bidder has won awards. By evaluating the topographies of the award areas and the number of locations per square kilometer, the user can further evaluate the award winners' challenges to deploying cost-effective networks.
It also includes a high-level assessment of each of these RDOF winners using the Wireless 20/20 WiROI™ RDOF Lite Business Case Analysis Tool. This comprehensive business case custom-developed in excel and exported in an interactive dashboard GUI, which allows investors to easily and interactively evaluate the cost and revenue of fiber, satellite and broadband wireless networks. The tool considers the anticipated FCC RDOF funding over time and generates revenue, OpEx, CapEx. Key input assumptions can be varied interactively to facilitate easy what-if scenario planning and ROI calculations. Please REGISTER to view a demo of the for WiROI™ RDOF Lite Business Case Analysis Tool for Investors.