News and Publications

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).

The security and privacy landscape has continued to evolve since NTIA first asked about it in our 2015 Internet Use Survey. High-profile data breaches and debates about the role of technology in people’s lives have kept concerns about privacy and security in the forefront. The spread of emerging technologies such as smart home devices and always-on voice assistants, as well as business models predicated on the collection, use, and sale of personal information, means these concerns have taken on increased urgency.

Every day, personal information is used to make important decisions: about what advertisements we see, what types of health care is offered in our communities, and what fields of study our educational institutes believe we are best suited for.

The collection, processing, and sharing of personal information can create serious risks for everyone. For racial minorities, people living with disabilities, people living in poverty, and other marginalized and underserved communities, the risks can be especially acute.

Every three years, NTIA makes recommendations to the Copyright Office in a process in which the Librarian of Congress determines exemptions to the anti-circumvention provision in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This provision prohibits the circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works.

Earlier this year, NTIA issued a 5G Challenge Notice of Inquiry (NOI) on behalf of the Department of Defense (DoD), requesting information on how to use Prize Challenges to accelerate the development of the open 5G ecosystem and support DoD missions.

This month, NTIA’s Communications Supply Chain Risk Information Partnership (C-SCRIP) is beginning a broad public outreach program by sending out its first C-SCRIP Update newsletter to inform our partners about events, announcements, and funding opportunities related to supply chain security. The first Update contains information on the Federal Communication Commission’s (FCC) Reimbursement Program and recent Open RAN Showcase, as well as NTIA resources on broadband grants and Software Bill of Materials. 

NTIA’s 2021 Spectrum Policy Symposium brought together key policymakers and industry experts to explore how a “whole of government” approach to spectrum policy can address U.S. priorities for 21st century global leadership. 

NTIA invites all interested parties to the 2021 NTIA Spectrum Policy Symposium, NTIA’s fourth annual spectrum event, on Sept. 21. This year’s symposium, under the theme “Modernizing U.S. Spectrum Strategy and Infrastructure,” will tackle the leading policy and technical issues that will drive spectrum use for years to come.

When public safety professionals use telecommunications systems to communicate with one another, it’s easy for them to tell when there’s an issue with the signals—they hear distorted sound, static or interruptions, to name a few examples.

Fixing these issues is much tougher. As the amount of spectrum used to transmit speech decreases, so do speech quality and intelligibility. A reliable system for measuring speech quality and intelligibility is required to optimize the two quantities—adjusting bandwidth use to efficiently deliver acceptable quality and intelligibility.

In his Executive Order (EO) on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, President Biden identified the prevention, detection, assessment and remediation of cyber incidents as a top priority of his Administration. The Commerce Department and NTIA were directed by the EO to publish the minimum elements for a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM), a key tool to help create a more transparent and secure software supply chain.

Every day, Americans depend on space-based technologies, which power navigation services, accurate weather forecasts, rural Internet access, public safety communications, national security objectives, and more. All of these technologies depend on a key public resource – radiofrequency spectrum – both for controlling space operations and for relaying communications and data to and from Earth.

At NTIA and the Department of Commerce, we are focused on expanding the use of broadband and spectrum, strengthening the nation’s cybersecurity defenses, improving public safety communications, and helping American workers and businesses compete in the 21st century.