News and Events

Marking one year of expanding high-speed Internet access in minority communities, NTIA’s Office of Minority Broadband Initiatives (OMBI) today released its inaugural Annual Report. This report, required by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 (CAA), details OMBI’s accomplishments over the office’s first year, identifies barriers to high-speed Internet access in minority communities, and outlines the office’s role in achieving digital equity across the United States.

The Internet is an essential communications tool that enables access to work, education, healthcare, and justice. Once a luxury, access to affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet is now a necessity.    

Despite its importance, millions of people in America cannot afford Internet service. Millions have no Internet access at all. And many who do, still face slow connection speeds and inadequate service.

The September 30, 2022, application deadline for the Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program is just days away. Our aim is to help applicants submit complete, informed, and high-quality applications. This post focuses on the Budget Information section.

So here’s how to Be Complete and Score Big!

Budget Information

Who Are Middle Mile Providers?

Middle mile service may be offered by a wide range of entities, from traditional retail Internet Service Providers, large technology companies that do not offer retail Internet service at all, or electric utilities that increasingly recognize their capability to transform the communications market. Regardless of who deploys and operates them, middle mile connections are crucial to connectivity and competition.

Why Middle Mile Matters

Middle mile infrastructure bridges the gap between where information is stored and the people interacting with it – it's an essential part of reliable, high-speed Internet access. Because of the nation’s middle mile networks, anyone in America can transfer data across the world, enabling community, competition, learning, and well-being.

The Communications Supply Chain Risk Information Partnership (C-SCRIP) held its first webinar for stakeholders on Monday, August 8. This program featured discussions on: 

Access to the Internet plays a critical role, serving as a catalyst for work, education, essential services, and more as part of routines in everyday life. But, even today, for many Americans, access to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet is still out of reach. 

The recent update of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and NTIA memorializes a shared commitment between the two agencies to renew a partnership critical to jointly managing the nation’s spectrum resources.   

August is often described as a quiet time here in Washington. That hasn’t been the case at NTIA.  

NTIA serves a critical role in ensuring the most effective and efficient use of spectrum across the federal government. With a focus on working toward a coordinated, national approach to spectrum use, promoting evidence-based approaches to spectrum allocation is a critical endeavor. Much effort is currently focused on spectrum sharing. NTIA’s research laboratory, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS), is bringing needed clarity to the challenge through its specialized engineering studies known as electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) studies.

In early June, around 500 young people from more 100 countries descended on Kigali, Rwanda for the ITU’s first Generation Connect Global Youth Summit. I was lucky to represent NTIA and the United States as part of a delegation sponsored by USTTI.  

Registration is now open for the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART)™ 2022, which will explore the theme: “Evolving Spectrum-Sharing Regulation through Data-, Science-, and Technology-Driven Analysis and Decision-Making.”

On November 15, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included a historic $65 billion investment to ensure that everyone in America has access to affordable, reliable, high-speed internet. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) was allocated more than $48 billion of this funding to work with states and other stakeholders to lay the critical groundwork to connect every American. 

A successful broadband project begins with a broadband plan, one that lays out the goals and path forward to enhance internet access and meaningful use within a target area or community. But there are many moving pieces involved in creating a broadband plan. BroadbandUSA’s Tribal Broadband Planning Toolkit aims to simplify the process for tribes.

Apps on mobile devices are a part of daily life for many Americans. They allow us to talk with our friends, find a ride home, play games, or monitor our health. These applications on our mobile phones and tablets can help small business owners reach new customers, and thousands of American entrepreneurs and innovators are working on apps that increase productivity, improve health care and make learning more fun.

This week marks National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, and NTIA is joining the entire nation in saluting our dedicated 911 telecommunicators. The dedicated professionals who answer our country’s 911 calls are a crucial first touch point to communities and individuals experiencing emergency situations. Whether taking and triaging initial calls for assistance, routing life-saving emergency medical services, or dispatching and coordinating field responders, America’s 911 professionals save lives each and every day.

NTIA is continuing to build out its senior leadership team as we prepare to launch the grant programs in the Broadband Infrastructure Law. The law, also known as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, includes a significant investment of $65 billion to help close the digital divide and ensure that all Americans have access to reliable, high speed, and affordable broadband.

NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) is seeking input for the 2022 International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) tentatively planned for the week of June 13, 2022.  ISART is a science and engineering discussion-based conference that brings together government, industry, and academic leaders (both domestic and international).

Earlier this year, NTIA issued a Request for Comment (RFC) on a wide range of policy and program considerations associated with new broadband grant programs authorized and funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The RFC period was open from January 10, 2022, to February 4, 2022.

In 2018, NTIA launched its Multistakeholder Process on Software Component Transparency, bringing together an active, engaged community to formulate and establish a software bill of materials (SBOM) – a nested inventory that makes up the “ingredients list” for software.

The stakeholders in our process initially focused on defining the problem: the what, the why, and the how of software component transparency. They established common, consensus definitions, and emphasized the importance of a "baseline" SBOM.

Over the last few months, NTIA’s National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) has added Nevada, Louisiana, American Samoa, and Puerto Rico to its growing roster of participants. To date, the NBAM includes 38 states, two U.S. territories, and five federal agencies: US Department of Agriculture (USDA), U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC).