NTIA Blog

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.    

The Symposium is preceded by significant spectrum progress at NTIA and the Trump administration. In August, the White House announced the availability of an additional 100 MHz of spectrum following an NTIA 3450-3550 MHz band repurposing study. NTIA research is exploring potential repurposing in the 3100-3450 MHz band and has also helped lead to the current Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band auction.

Admission is free and open to the public via the NTIA website. For additional information or questions, email spectrumsymposium@ntia.doc.gov.

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. But first responders now have access to equipment and networks that support video and image transmission as well.

Streaming video could help an incident commander coordinate firefighters, for example. However, the challenge is that fire response is fast—about 3 minutes for a single-family dwelling. Deploying and coordinating helmet-cam feeds from 25 firefighters will only be practical with the aid of computer vision and video analytics, which are currently just out of reach.

Today’s off-the-shelf cameras come with many image-quality problems. Think of a door’s peep hole: you look through it and see a backlit person or just the arm of someone standing too far to the side. It would be great to have something between you and the peephole that fixes these problems.

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The Trump Administration has engaged in significant efforts to ensure that the U.S. leads the world in 5G, which promises to be an essential driver of our economy for years to come. This month, building on technical analysis by NTIA engineers, the Administration announced that an additional 100 megahertz of mid-band spectrum would be made available for 5G deployment.

For more than 25 years, NTIA has been surveying the American public about its computer and Internet use, in partnership with the Census Bureau.

Our most recent NTIA Internet Use Survey went into the field in November 2019, with more than 50 questions administered to approximately 50,000 households across the United States. The survey covers a range of topics related to digital inclusion and similar issues, with the goal of informing Internet policy analysis and development that can help to bridge the digital divide.

In anticipation of conducting future surveys, NTIA is seeking recommendations from the public about how we can improve our survey and make it as relevant as possible. Are there questions we previously asked that should be changed or deleted? Are there any questions that we should be adding? We want to hear from you.

After digesting your comments, NTIA will draft a revised survey instrument to use in the future. Beginning this fall, experts from the Census Bureau will conduct cognitive testing of our draft survey, which will help us learn what questions may cause confusion or elicit inaccurate responses. Census will recommend changes aimed at addressing any problems uncovered during this process.

The Trump administration has made substantial progress in improving the resilience of the Internet ecosystem and reducing the threat of botnets. In a report released today, the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security documented more than 50 activities led by industry and government that demonstrate progress in the drive to counter botnet threats. Building upon work started two years ago with the Botnet Report and Road Map, industry and government are working hard to put a stop to these dangerous attacks.

Here are a few of the milestone achievements:

NTIA launched the Minority Broadband Initiative (MBI) in November 2019 in partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) to work on solving deployment challenges in vulnerable communities.  As part of that ongoing effort, BroadbandUSA’s July webinar, “Cyberinfrastructure: Moving Beyond Broadband at HBCUs and TCUs,” highlighted that cyberinfrastructure – the broader network of technology systems – is a vital component for HBCUs and TCUs to remain competitive in the digital economy. The webinar was moderated by NTIA’s MBI lead, Francine Alkisswani, and Tonya Smith-Jackson, Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at North Carolina A&T State University.

Curtis Bradlee, Acting Chief Information Officer at South Carolina State University, said partnerships with area universities helped to expand SC State’s capabilities. Among these partnerships is C-Light, a statewide direct fiber network managed by Clemson University that provides access to national and international research networks such as Internet2. SC State serves as an access point for other institutions to connect to Internet2, and participated in the National Science Foundation (NSF) CI Empower initiative.

NTIA’s National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) has added Indiana and Georgia to its growing roster of participants. These additions closely follow the incorporation of Wyoming and Washington State to the broadband platform earlier this month. To date, NBAM includes 22 states.   

The NBAM is a geographic information system platform which allows for the visualization and analysis of federal, state, and commercially available data sets. This includes data from the Federal Communications Commission, U.S. Census Bureau, Universal Service Administrative Company, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ookla, Measurement Lab, and the state governments. The mapping platform provides users, including administrators from the 22 participating states, with access to the NBAM and its data to better inform broadband projects and funding decisions in their states.

With more and more states joining, the NBAM is another step closer to creating a national platform that can help inform policymakers and expand Internet coverage across the United States. 

For questions, please email: nbam@ntia.gov.

NTIA’s National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) reached a 20 state milestone with the addition of Wyoming and Washington State. 

The NBAM is a geographic information system platform which allows for the visualization and analysis of federal, state, and commercially available data sets. This includes data from the Federal Communications Commission, U.S. Census Bureau, Universal Service Administrative Company, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Ookla, Measurement Lab, and the state governments. The mapping platform provides users, including administrators from the 20 participating states, with access to the NBAM and its data to better inform broadband projects and funding decisions in their states.

40 percent of the states now participate in the NBAM. This positive momentum will better equip policymakers as we work together to expand broadband Internet coverage across the United States.

For questions, please email: nbam@ntia.gov.

Today, NTIA is announcing the establishment of the Communications Supply Chain Risk Information Partnership (C-SCRIP), a program to share supply chain security risk information with trusted communications providers and suppliers. 

Small and rural communications providers and equipment suppliers are the primary focus of this program, and our goal is to improve their access to information about risks to key elements in their supply chain. NTIA will ensure that this risk information is relevant and accessible, and we will work with our government partners to enable the granting of security clearances when necessary.

The C-SCRIP program was called for in the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019, which President Trump signed into law on March 12, 2020. The Act established a Federal Communications Commission program to reimburse smaller providers for removing and replacing equipment and services that threaten national security. This information sharing program, mandated by Section 8 of the Act, was intended to ensure that small, rural providers have access to the supply chain risk information they need before they make an investment, which should help mitigate further “rip and replace” programs in the future.

The Minority Broadband Initiative (MBI) has been closely engaging with Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) presidents, chancellors, and students on Digital Economy related issues since its launch last November. Building and maintaining conversations with key stakeholders has been instrumental in understanding and exploring options for leveraging HBCU broadband infrastructure to connect neighboring communities of vulnerable populations, especially during the outbreak of COVID-19. 

In May and June, the MBI hosted a teleconference with 77 leaders from 57 HBCUs to discuss HBCU institutional approaches, successes, and remaining challenges as they confront the immediate response to COVID-19 and set plans for the longer-term recovery. The schools’ leaders identified an ongoing need for targeted federal funding for broadband access, digital literacy training, and continued close engagement with government at all levels to expand the relationship with the HBCU community and ensure the distinct needs of their institutions are well understood by decision makers.