Institute for Telecommunication Sciences

The Trump Administration is poised to make significant progress this year in efforts to promote new 5G opportunities through mid-band spectrum sharing. In January, NTIA reported considerable potential for spectrum sharing options in the 3450-3550 MHz band. This summer, years of work by NTIA engineers in collaboration with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Defense will culminate in an FCC auction of Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) licenses in the adjacent 3550-3650 MHz band.

Incumbent federal operations in both these bands are primarily military radars and include shipborne, airborne, and land-based systems. But limited information exists about actual usage of these bands – what’s sometimes known as spectrum occupancy data.

Today, NTIA’s research lab, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS), published a summary report that presents data collected from a two-year effort to measure spectrum occupancy in these two key bands. Interim occupancy reports were provided to NTIA engineers throughout 2018 and 2019, helping to inform CBRS policy. Today’s publication makes a summary of the measurements available to the public for the first time.

This year’s International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technology (ISART) conference will take place Aug. 11-13 in Boulder, Colorado. The conference will focus on what a “zero trust” network environment means from a 5G perspective. The symposium, which is co-sponsored by NTIA and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, will include panel discussions, presentations, tutorials, and demonstrations from subject matter experts from U.S. and international organizations. Visit the ISART website for more information.

Every initiative to expand spectrum use and efficiency relies on predictions of how far a wireless signal will travel, or propagate, before interfering with another user or fading away. Unlocking the full potential of spectrum resources requires a deep understanding of radio wave behavior, and accurate propagation models, so that systems can be designed to coexist in a crowded environment.

High-precision measurements are key to creating and validating radio propagation models. NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) and its predecessors have been collecting measurement data for more than a century, creating a unique expertise in measurement science and techniques. Last year, NTIA released a technical memorandum on “Best Practices for Radio Propagation Measurements.”