D.C. Circuit Upholds LTD RDOF Denial

WASHINGTON, June 9, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission was right to revoke the biggest award winner in its 2020 rural broadband program, judges found.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected on June 3 LTD Broadband’s challenge to its $1.3 billion funding denial under the Rural Digital Opportunity Fund.

“Because the FCC acted reasonably, we deny LTD’s petition,” the three-judge panel said in a unanimous decision. 

LTD bid aggressively in the Federal Communications Commission’s reverse auction in 2020, and was tentatively awarded $1.3 billion to serve 528,000 locations. After the bidding process, winners submitted more detailed long-form applications to prove they could serve the homes and businesses they had won, and the FCC denied LTD’s. The agency said it wasn’t convinced the company, which served about 15,000 customers at the time, was financially or technically capable of scaling up to meet its RDOF commitments.

The company had argued that the agency improperly scrutinized its long-form application because of its size. Judges sided with the agency, finding the scrutiny did not violate FCC rules and was in fact warranted because of LTD’s size.

“The FCC subjected LTD’s application to unusual scrutiny only because LTD’s application was unusual,” the court wrote. “As the biggest winner at the auction and a relatively small company, LTD was aspiring to do far more than it had ever done. The FCC thus had reason to wonder whether LTD was up to the task.”

LTD had asked for judges to remand the denial back to the FCC and require staff to use a less exacting standard of review, which the company thought would result in its application being approved.

“We disagree with LTD’s premise: The auction rules do not limit the FCC to checking long-form applications for completeness and endorsement by experts,” judges wrote.

The FCC had proposed a $22 million fine against LTD in late 2023 as a penalty for defaulting.

LTD was not alone in defaulting on RDOF winnings early. More than $3.1 billion was defaulted on before any long-form applications were approved, including other major bidders like Elon Musk’s Starlink, which won a tentative $850 million to serve nearly 630,000 locations. 

Those pre-award defaults dwarf the more than $160 million in defaults since providers got their funding, but they continue to come in. Lumen relinquished all its RDOF locations in eight states on Friday.

LTD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.