News and Publications

Telemedicine and telehealth-related activities are on the rise, according to NTIA’s November 2019 Internet Use Survey, which found that more households are using the Internet to communicate with health professionals, access health records, and research health information.

Because the survey was conducted prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, it provides an important baseline for understanding the prevalence of telehealth usage among American households and the importance of Internet access for essential services.

Behind every wireless telecommunications decision is a prediction of how far the signal will travel and how much strength it will lose along the way. This is called propagation modelling. Propagation models drive decisions about things like how and where to deploy cell towers, what rules to establish for geographically sharing spectrum, and what kind of spectrum equipment to build. It is vital that all stakeholders trust the models being used and accept the results as sound.

NTIA’s 2020 Spectrum Policy Symposium showcased how private-sector innovation and government support are working to advance America’s longtime leadership in wireless technologies. The third annual symposium, held virtually on September 22, brought together a broad cross-section of government policymakers and experts in the telecommunications, tech, space and aerospace industries. It featured keynote remarks from U.S.

NTIA’s BroadbandUSA program has added a new digital inclusion section to its website.  This webpage compiles resources and program information from federal agencies as well as state and local governments that are working across the country to close gaps in broadband adoption and use, affordability, access to devices, and digital skills.  NTIA is particularly pleased to announce this resource during Digital Inclusion Week.

This summer, NTIA reported initial results from our latest NTIA Internet Use Survey, which showed that Americans were increasingly using a larger and more varied range of devices. But with dozens of topics covered in the survey, there is a lot more we can learn from this data collection, including questions about online activities such as checking email, watching videos and participating in the sharing economy.

On September 22, NTIA will virtually host its annual Spectrum Policy Symposium. The Symposium will bring together experts from academia, private industry, and government to tackle the nation’s most pressing spectrum management challenges.    

For decades, NTIA’s research laboratory, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS), has been working alongside the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Public Safety Communications Research program (PSCR) and the public safety community to enhance mission-critical communications. First, it was all about intelligible voice communications.