News and Events

NTIA, on behalf of the First Responder Network Authority, is seeking a new board member for a seat that will become vacant in August, according to a Federal Register notice. The 15-member FirstNet board includes 12 non-permanent members, the Secretary of Homeland Security, U.S. Attorney General and Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Engineers at NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) have completed performance certification lab testing of Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) equipment – the sensors that will help enable dynamic sharing in the 3.5 GHz band between U.S. Navy radars and Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) devices.

As a critical step in delivering on President Trump’s call for development of a national spectrum strategy, NTIA has asked federal agencies to report their future spectrum needs over the next 15 years. The reports will help ensure the federal government is optimizing utilization of the nation’s spectrum resources and meeting the needs of spectrum users, including critical federal missions that serve the American public. Agencies must submit their initial reports by Feb. 21, 2019 and provide final reports by April 23, 2019.

Botnets and automated, distributed attacks threaten our nation’s Internet infrastructure. Solving this and other cybersecurity challenges is a top priority for the Trump Administration.

Behind every initiative to share spectrum are models of how radio waves in a particular band travel, or propagate, through different environments. How far will a signal travel before it becomes too faint to be useful or to interfere with another signal? What happens when a signal encounters a tree, or a hill, or a house? If we can accurately model how radio waves will behave, it can dramatically increase the odds that sharing mechanisms will work.

Exemplifying the power of partnerships, NTIA recently teamed up with the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Johnson C. Smith University to convene a broadband summit for HBCUs in North and South Carolina. On Nov.

As public safety agencies around the country take advantage of FirstNet, the first nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN), NTIA is marking the end of a grant program that helped lay the groundwork for FirstNet’s success.

In 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) to accommodate sharing in the 3.5 GHz band between incumbent users — mostly Navy radar systems — and a variety of new commercial users.

Protecting intellectual property rights is a critical government responsibility that helps grow our economy. It is equally as important to ensure that measures intended to protect these rights aren’t misused to stifle innovation or the free flow of information.

The demand for more spectrum capacity is intense, and its wise allocation is a top priority as our nation builds out fifth generation (5G) wireless networks. By 2021, Cisco projects that global mobile data traffic will increase sevenfold, with 5G generating 4.7 times more traffic than 4G.

5G promises new capabilities and possibilities for our Nation’s innovators. Americans, ever the pioneers, are pushing forth a renaissance in space exploration and development, with our commercial satellite industry continuing to flourish and creating thousands of new jobs.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) will convene its quadrennial treaty-making conference in Dubai later this month. The ITU is a United Nations agency representing 193 countries that allocates global radio spectrum and satellite orbits, manages international standards for telecommunications networks and technology, and works to improve access to these technologies in the areas of the world that do not have it.

This week, NTIA recognizes International Digital Inclusion Week.

On Oct. 12, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information David Redl participated in a fireside chat with Brookings Institution fellow, Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee, to discuss the work that NTIA has been doing on privacy, the Internet, and nationwide broadband connectivity.

Today, NTIA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced the opening of the 911 Grant Program, which will provide as much as $110 million to help 911 call centers across the country upgrade equipment and operations to Next Generation (NG911) capabilities.

Nearly 170 experts from government, academia, and industry explored the challenges of managing ultra-dense wireless systems at the 17th International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) July 24-26 in Broomfield, Colo. Panels and presentations discussed the current state of the art and mapped out possible paths forward to the next generation of radio wave propagation models.

This week, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to update the rules governing Wireless Priority Service (WPS), a program that enables wireless emergency calls to get through if networks are congested.

Leading spectrum policy experts in government and industry are among the speakers for the 17th International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) to take place July 24-26 in Boulder Colorado.

Most modern software is a creation of existing components, modules, and libraries from the open source and commercial software world. A detailed accounting of components isn’t always available, which can create obstacles when protecting against security risks. This challenge is compounded by the growth in Internet of Things devices, as companies add “smart” features or connectivity without clear visibility into a product’s underlying software components.

Giving voice to all stakeholders in an open and transparent decision-making process is a core goal of NTIA’s international engagement. We are working on a number of issues, from protecting the availability of WHOIS information to pushing for more effective membership oversight of the International Telecommunication Union. As we look to further build out our international agenda, we want to hear from stakeholders about the critical global policy areas we will face this year and beyond.

Across the country, Americans use broadband to learn, shop, grow their businesses, and connect with friends and family around the world. Communities that gain access to affordable, high-speed Internet see improvements to economic growth, educational opportunities, and public safety and health care services.

One of NTIA’s most important responsibilities is working with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to find spectrum to support competitive and ubiquitous 5G broadband wireless service in America. Efficient use of spectrum is critical as we look to get more spectrum into the hands of wireless innovators while protecting federal users. To help achieve this goal, NTIA engineers have facilitated the creation of a new concept in flexible spectrum sharing, Dynamic Protection Areas (DPAs), to enable increased access to the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band.