FCC Announces 5G Effort to Boost Rural Communities and Businesses
(WASHINGTON) – The Rural & Agriculture Council of America (RACA) applauds today’s announcement by The White House and FCC to invest in improving next generation connectivity and access for rural Americans. Under the FCC’s 5G Fast Plan, President Trump and FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai announced the largest commercial spectrum auction in FCC history, freeing up more airwaves for the private sector to enhance their quality of service and lay the foundation for networks of the future.
RACA Vice President Chris Skorupa issued the following statement:
“Their announcement of a $20.4 billion ‘Rural Digital Opportunity Fund’ will help underserved areas’ access to broadband over the next 10 years through a series of incentives intended to stimulate private sector competition and investment in much-needed broadband infrastructure”.
“These efforts demonstrate that private sector competition, not government nationalization of networks, is the best path forward to stimulating local economies and bridging the digital divide in rural communities across America.”
ABOUT RACA
The Rural & Agriculture Council of America (RACA), headquartered in Billings, Montana in conjunction with Washington, DC representation, is a consortium of mayors, county commissioners, ranchers, farmers, producers, main street business owners, and leaders in rural America. Working as collective group, RACA is the voice of rural America in Washington, advocating for federal, state, and local policy and regulatory reform to advance the rural and agricultural goals and initiatives of America. The policy and regulatory reform objectives of RACA are dictated by our stakeholders and reflect the discussions being held by policy makers on the Hill.
RACA specializes in targeted, well-researched grassroots campaigns to increase awareness about the policy and regulatory objectives of rural America. RACA achieves a heightened level of awareness for the issues we work with by engaging with producers, ranchers, main street business owners, and policy makers, allowing a forum for communication on the issues most important to those in rural America. RACA thrives in bringing issues from main street to Washington, RACA gives a prominent voice to these issues by employing an arsenal of targeted social media campaigns, meetings/discussions with policy and decision makers, press conferences, editorials, industry roundtables, briefings by industry experts or our council, fly-ins, and keeping stakeholders informed via press releases.
In the past, RACA has lent our expertise to an extensive array of rural policy and regulatory issues including, the Farm Bill, tax reform/policy, broadband expansion, EPA, and regulations. RACA has been, and will continue to be, a pioneer in representing the policy and regulatory objectives of rural America, we strive to take the dialogue of main street, rural America, to policy and decision makers in Washington