Auctions

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is committed to assisting people living on tribal lands to acquire telecommunication services. Since tribal lands are often located in sparsely populated, remote areas of the country, tribal lands bidding credits are offered to telecommunication providers to help offset some of the costs of providing telecommunication services.

The FCC’s Tribal Lands Bidding Credits are available to winning bidders that deploy facilities and provide service to federally-recognized tribal areas that have a wireline telephone subscription or penetration rate equal to or below 85 percent. The information in the tables below was derived from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs’ 2009 list of federally-recognized tribal entities (pdf) as well as the United States Census Bureau’s 2000 Census, and is made available as a guideline only. An applicant is solely responsible for performing due diligence as to whether a specific tribal land meets the FCC’s requirement for a tribal lands bidding credit.

The Tribal Lands Bidding Credit program is only one of a number of initiatives the FCC has launched to address the lack of telecommunications deployment and subscribership throughout Indian Country. For additional information on what the Commission is doing, visit the FCC's Tribal Homepage.