NTIA Blog

This blog was cross posted on Commerce.gov.

While the Internet has transformed everything from how we search for a job to how we communicate with friends and family, cities are looking to utilize digital technology to address stubborn challenges such as reducing traffic congestion, fighting crime, promoting economic development, and making local governments more accessible and efficient. To support such efforts, the Obama Administration this fall launched a new “Smart Cities” initiative and called for investing $160 million in federal research to help communities address 21^st century challenges and support such initiatives as smart transportation systems that could adjust traffic management in real time or support expanded use of smart grid technology to better monitor peak energy usage.

Last week, I spoke at the 5^th Annual Americas Spectrum Management Conference in Washington, D.C.  It was a valuable opportunity to talk about NTIA’s approach to spectrum policy and our efforts to meet the growing need for spectrum of both industry and federal agencies.

The wireless industry has fueled tremendous innovation and economic growth with its use of spectrum. To maintain the growth of wireless broadband services, industry requires more and more spectrum. At the same time, critical missions performed by federal agencies – from predicting deadly storms to exploring space -- are requiring systems of greater complexity. The result: There is more demand for this finite resource than ever before.

It is clear that we can’t meet the challenges that arise from this increased demand by using the traditional methods of spectrum reallocation, which often take too long and cost too much money. Innovation in spectrum use must be met with innovation in spectrum allocation. The answer is spectrum sharing, a flexible and evolving option that is helping to optimize this resource to the benefit of both the public and private sectors.

Sharing offers increased access to both federal and non-federal users. It’s also more flexible and efficient than the typical process of relocating federal operations. And it’s an improving science – researchers at the Center for Advanced Communications (CAC) in Boulder, Colo., are focused on cutting-edge spectrum sharing research and development, experimentation and testing.

In July 2015, NTIA commissioned the Census Bureau to conduct the latest Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the NTIA Internet Use Survey. NTIA uses this survey to help understand why, where, and how Americans use the Internet, as well as what barriers stand in the way of effective Internet use.

This post is part of our “Spotlight on NTIA” blog series, which is highlighting the work that NTIA employees are doing to advance NTIA’s mission of promoting broadband adoption, finding spectrum to meet the growing demand for wireless technologies, and ensuring the Internet remains an engine for innovation and economic growth.

Jennifer Duane says the best thing about working at NTIA is that there is never a “typical day.”

She appreciates the fast pace, the breadth of issues and the depth of the challenges NTIA is addressing.

“It never seems like there’s a dull moment,” she says.

Duane came to NTIA in 2009 to help implement the Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program (BTOP), which funded grants to expand broadband access and adoption. She moved to the Office of the Chief Counsel after a year and a half, continuing her work on BTOP legal issues. In 2012, she was named a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Assistant Secretary, where she added duties related to NTIA’s oversight of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) and other public safety efforts.

The 67 students at Silverton School, nestled in the mountains of Colorado’s San Juan County, are returning from winter break to an abundance of new educational resources.

The students of Silverton School
(click to enlarge)

Thanks to a grant from NTIA’s Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), Silverton School is now linked to a high-speed fiber-optic network that will deliver broadband speeds of 100 megabits per second to the small K-12 institution.

The new connection is an important milestone for EAGLE-NET Alliance, a Colorado intergovernmental entity that is leveraging federal funding to supply broadband to schools, libraries, government facilities and other anchor institutions across the state. And it is a big victory for local stakeholders, including Silverton Public Schools and San Juan County’s Board of County Commissioners.

Silverton – with a winter population of between 400 and 500 and a summer population that can reach 1,000 - is the last county seat in Colorado to connect to a fiber-optic system. With EAGLE-NET Alliance now bringing 20 gigabits of bandwidth into the community, Silverton hopes last-mile broadband providers will be able to hook up local businesses and homes in 2016.

Since its creation in 2004, the Spectrum Relocation Fund (SRF) has served as an important tool supporting federal agency efforts to make more spectrum available for commercial use. The fund reimburses agencies for some of the costs they incur for repurposing the spectrum they use in performing critical missions on behalf of the American people, opening the door to commercial access to the spectrum.

Modifying agency communications systems to use a different spectrum band or perhaps share spectrum with commercial providers can be exceedingly costly, and agencies typically do not have adequate budgets to cover all the costs associated with such efforts. Congress created the SRF to help defray the costs associated with spectrum relocation or sharing. It supports the efforts of federal agencies as they work to help meet the President’s goal of identifying 500 megahertz of additional federal and non-federal spectrum for wireless broadband services, both licensed and unlicensed, by 2020.

For many Americans, the days of connecting to the Internet solely through a stationary desktop computer are over. Going online now means shopping on a tablet, using a PlayStation to watch movies, or checking email on a smartphone.

Even at the epicenter of the high-tech revolution, there are digital haves and have-nots.

NTIA hosted a broadband workshop last week at the Computer History Museum in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. And the take-away was this: the state that gave us semiconductor chips, Internet search engines and smartphones faces the same digital divide challenges as the rest of the nation.

The Bay Area may be home to technology giants such as Intel, Google and Apple. But in the remote reaches of rural Humboldt County, there are tribal lands that still lack basic communications infrastructure. And in the desert towns of the Coachella Valley, there are students who can’t get online to do homework since there is no Internet access in the mobile home communities where they live.

NTIA has long noted disparities in Internet use based on race and ethnicity, among other demographics. While the United States has made great strides in recent years to close the digital divide, the latest NTIA data on Internet and computer use suggest that gaps remain among certain groups.

In an important step to making more spectrum available for commercial use, NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) recently launched a new online site that enables commercial entities and federal agencies to coordinate spectrum use in the 1695-1710 MHz band, one of three bands recently made available by auction for Advanced Wireless Services (AWS). The new NTIA portal fulfills an important requirement to enable sharing in the 1695-1710 MHz portion of this prime spectrum. 

Although many federal incumbents will eventually relocate out of the AWS bands, relocation is not feasible for agencies that operate meteorological satellite Earth stations in the 1695-1710 MHz band. To make this band available for sharing, the Federal Communications Commission devised rules that require commercial auction winners to successfully coordinate with federal incumbents prior to operating in geographic areas (coordination zones) around these stations, which will continue to operate indefinitely.