Sohn Auction

FCC Denies Mercury’s RDOF Waiver Request

Provider now faces over $25M in penalties for defaults.

Cameron Marx

Aug 20, 2025 — 3 min read

WASHINGTON, August 20, 2025 – The Federal Communications Commission showed no mercy when it tore into Mercury Broadband.

“Mercury’s decision to bid on areas, win support, apply for support, and then default has potentially delayed the deployment of broadband to tens of thousands of Americans living in high-cost areas,” the commission wrote Tuesday. Referencing Mercury’s claim that it would be “unfair and inequitable” to not grant the provider a waiver, the commission turned Mercury’s words against it, arguing that “it would be unfair and inequitable to apply a different [penalty] calculation to Mercury.”

The FCC’s sharp rebuke came after the broadband provider, headquartered in Mission, Kansas, asked the FCC to waive an estimated $25 million in penalties for defaulting on more than 92,000 Rural Digital Opportunity Fund locations.

In late 2020 Mercury won $68 million to serve over 167,000 locations with broadband infrastructure in an RDOF reverse auction. After defaulting on nearly 45,000 locations during the pre-authorization window, it exited the final review process with $61 million in promised RDOF support and an obligation to serve 122,000 locations with those funds.

More defaults came. By the end of November 2024, it had completely withdrawn from the program in Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri, and had defaulted on over 64,000 locations in Indiana and Michigan collectively. Despite warnings from the FCC that the company would be subject to penalties for its defaults, the company defaulted on more than 14,000 locations in Ohio in December.

The broadband provider sought relief from FCC-imposed penalties in May, arguing that the $25.1 million penalty would go against the public interest. Evidently, the Commission wasn’t convinced.

“We are not persuaded it would serve the public interest to now revisit these rules and take a different approach for Mercury because Mercury has made a business decision to default on serving a large number of locations and now finds it too expensive to pay the required support recovery,” the FCC’s notice, attributed to AJ Burton, associate bureau chief of the Wireline Competition Bureau, stated.

The agency’s displeasure was evident throughout its 11-page notice. It noted that Mercury waited “until right before” it was required to start paying back RDOF funds before making a waiver request, and stated several times that if Mercury was not comfortable with the RDOF’s default penalties, it should never have participated in the program. Though it called Mercury’s request to be subject to a lighter penalty “creative,” it also called it “unprecedented” and ultimately declined to grant Mercury’s request.

Mercury now faces over $25 million in penalties and clawed-back funding. It is only one of several providers that have defaulted on their RDOF obligations and later sought relief from the fines. Tuesday’s notice signaled that for those ISPs, relief may not come. Towards the end of that notice, the FCC made its position regarding those providers clear.

“Bidding carriers knew what to expect if they were authorized and then later chose not to meet their obligations associated with their winning bids,” the FCC wrote.

Sung Suho

Sung Suho (성수호) is the son of the Sung Jinwoo and Cha Hae-In. He is also the main protagonist of Solo Leveling: Ragnarok.

Contents

• 1 Appearance
• 2 Personality
• 3 Abilities
• 4 Skills
  • 4.1 Passive Skills
  • 4.2 Active Skills
  • 4.3 Job Skills
  • 4.4 Bond Skills

  Appearance

  Suho is a tall, handsome, and muscular young man with gray eyes and black hair, both of which he inherited from his father. His facial features closely resemble his mother’s and share the same softer traits. When using his powers or experiencing intense emotions, his eyes glow purple.

  Personality

  It should be noted that despite sharing his father’s desire for power, Suho’s drive to become stronger comes from his wish to reunite with his parents after they abruptly vanished from his life when he was a child. Despite the fact that they basically abandoned him, Suho doesn’t resent them for leaving him behind, especially after he found out the truth about why they left him from Beru, and rarely ever wastes a chance to hone his skills and become stronger so that they can eventually see them again.

  Abilities

  As the son of the Shadow Monarch, Suho is one of the strongest humans alive. By the time he was in high school, he had already far surpassed the average S-Rank Hunter in power and was so strong by that point that only Jinwoo could defeat him in an one-on-one fight. However, as powerful as he is, he has yet to reach his full potential. Most of his powers were also sealed away when he was a toddler, meaning that he must train to regain them all.

  • Immense Strength: Suho possesses immense physical strength. As a testament to this, he overpowered Bellion during their first fight [ 11 ] and even managed to hold on his own against his father for a brief period of time. He was also able to climb the floors of the Demon Castle at a significantly faster pace than Jinwoo did during his time as the Player of the System, despite having no soldiers to assist him, and kill Vulcan with just a few blows. [ 12 ]
  • Immense Speed: Suho is extremely fast and can move at incredible speeds. This was demonstrated by how he was agile enough to briefly keep up with his father’s movements during their battle in the tutorial that Jinwoo created for him.
  • Immense Durability: Suho is extraordinarily durable, having gained a tremendous amount of resilience from his brutal training with Ammut.
  • Combat Mastery: Despite lacking formal training, Suho is highly skilled at hand-to-hand combat. He is also proficient with weapons such as swords and daggers, though he prefers fighting with his bare hands.
  • Accelerated Development: Like his father, Suho possesses an extraordinary explosive growth rate and can significantly increase his strength through intensive training over a short period of time.
  • Fire Magic: Suho can generate red and black flames and infuse them into his attacks, drastically increasing the amount of damage that he can deal to his opponents.
  • Monster Language Fluency: Suho can speak and understand monster tongue, which he uses to communicate with his shadow soldiers, his other future Monarchs, and the enemy monsters that he encounters in battle.

  Skills

  Passive Skills

  • Longevity: Suho is immune to all diseases, poisons, and any abilities that can be harmful to his status. His regeneration speed is also far faster than a normal human’s and increases exponentially when he sleeps. [ 13 ]
  • Resilience: Suho’s physical defense is increased by 160%, making it harder to beat him down in battle. [ 14 ]
  • Martial Arts: If Suho fights hand-to-hand, any damage he inflicts on his opponent will be increased by 33%. [ 15 ]
  • Increased Strength: Suho’s physical strength is increased by 20%. [ 16 ]
  • Advanced Dagger Techniques: If Suho uses his daggers in battle, any damage he inflicts on his opponent will be increased by 33%. [ 17 ]
  • Gluttony: Suho’s experience gains are increased by 300%. [ 18 ]
  • Nightmare of The World Tree: Suho is highly resistant to the life-draining effects of the World Tree. [ 19 ]
  • The Shadow of the World Tree: Suho can spread his shadow to stop time and grant himself access to the World of Nothingness. This skill enables him to interact with the deceased Monarchs and connect with the residual soul flow of the World Tree.

  Active Skills

  • Poison: Suho is immune to all types of poison and can reproduce any poison he ingests to use against his opponents in battle.
  • Frigid Blizzard: Suho can create blizzards out of thin air. This skill also applies a debuff to his opponents that reduces their movement and attack speed.
  • Elf’s Steps: By applying mana to the soles of his feet, Suho can ensure that he doesn’t leave any tracks or footprints on any form of terrain.
  • Bloodlust: Suho can magically intimidate an opponent into submission, inducing intense fear into those who are targeted by this technique and decreasing their stats by 50%. It can also be used on multiple opponents at once.
  • Grassland Gale: Suho can increase his speed by 30% for a short period of time.
  • Slaughter: Suho can unleash a barrage of high-speed slashes that are so fast that they are invisible to the naked eye.
  • Storm Slash: Suho can generate fierce winds around his sword, enabling him to cut down multiple opponents at once over a wide area. [ 20 ]
  • Iron Body Reinforcement: Suho can drastically increase his attack and defense power. This skill also significantly strengthens his soul, making him virtually immune to any kind of life-draining debuffs. [ 21 ]
  • Giant’s Armor: Suho can grow about twice as big in physical size. This skill also moderately increases his defense power. [ 22 ]
  • Ruler’s Authority: Suho can move and control objects via telekinesis. [ 14 ]
  • Shadow Extraction: Suho can extract shadows from the corpses of his enemies and add them to his army. [ 14 ]
    • Form Change: Suho can reshape his shadow soldiers into any form that he desires. [ 23 ]

    Job Skills

    • Breath of Destruction: Suho can shoot blazing torrents of fire from his mouth or from his hands. [ 25 ]

    Bond Skills

    • Beast Possession: By magically fusing with Gray, Suho’s strength and speed are both significantly enhanced. This skill also boosts his senses to animalistic levels, making it easier for him to dodge incoming attacks, and causes him to undergo a slight transformation, with white hair, white claws, wolf-like ears, and golden-black armor on his forearms. [ 15 ]
    • Demon Strike: Suho infuses charged energy supplied to him by Esil into his body, drastically enhancing the destructive power of his next attack. [ 26 ] This energy is red and black in color, completely covers one of his forearms almost like a layer of armor, and causes his entire body to glow bright red while this skill is active. [ 27 ]
    • Spirit Armament: By having his shadow soldiers absorb the spirits of Sirka’s slaves, Suho can significantly increase their strength for an extended period of time.

    Trivia

    • Suho’s birthday is November 21st. [ 28 ]
    • Suho is currently in line to succeed Antares as the Monarch of Destruction. [ 29 ]
    • Suho’s first fight in the novel is against a giant wolf instead of a Mist Burn like it is in the webtoon. [ 30 ]
    • Due to having powers similar to his father’s ever since he was born, Suho unknowingly increased his mother’s mana capacity when she was pregnant with him and indirectly enabled her to become as strong as a National Level Hunter.

    References

    1. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 221
    2. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 30
    3. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 243
    4. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 77
    5. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 137
    6. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 153
    7. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 190
    8. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 192
    9. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 202
    10. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 211
    11. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 198
    12. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 196
    13. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 2
    14. ↑ 14.014.114.2Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 5
    15. ↑ 15.015.1Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 13 Note: Unlike the webtoon, Suho learns this skill in Chapter 152.
    16. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 36
    17. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 243
    18. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 248
    19. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 315
    20. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 9
    21. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 148
    22. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 46
    23. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 8
    24. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 202
    25. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 348
    26. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 20
    27. ↑Ragnarok Webtoon: Chapter 29
    28. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 179
    29. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 198
    30. ↑Ragnarok Novel: Chapter 3

    External Links

    • Sung Suho on the Heroes Wiki
    Source: https://solo-leveling.fandom.com/wiki/Sung_Suho