NTIA Blog

By Margaret Harding McGill, NTIA

Dalia Calderon was ready to quit college, for the second time. She had returned to Mercy University after a 20-year break, but the combination of online classes and an ancient laptop was proving to be too much to bear. 

“I said, ‘I don’t know how I can finish school. I'm just going to drop out - I’m already old,’” said Calderon, 47, who lives in the Bronx. “That’s when I got an email that said they were loaning laptops. I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’”

Mercy University has loaned more than 500 laptops and hotspots to help students like Calderon access the Internet as part of a program funded by a $2.6 million Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program grant from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). 

Calderon first attended Mercy when she was in her twenties, but between having children and the cost of tuition, she was unable to graduate. She now works at an elementary school, and the principal urged her to return to college so she could obtain her teaching license. 

Calderon worked as a private tutor to save up the money to re-enroll. She took online classes so she could continue to work, but her ancient laptop was not up to the task. With only two classes left, she was ready to give up. 

That’s when she heard about Mercy’s new laptop program. When she went to campus to pick hers up, she learned it was also Internet-enabled. 

At the National Telecommunications and Information Administration we are working to foster the development of an open 5G wireless ecosystem to help the private sector bring new life and innovation to a marketplace held back by few vendors and little competition.  

One way we’re doing this is through our 5G lab at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, where we partnered with the Department of Defense for our 2023 5G Challenge. The 2023 5G Challenge tested whether an open 5G ecosystem can work in real world scenarios.

Challenge Structure Recap 

These results are now available in the 2023 5G Challenge Closing Ceremony video

The 2023 5G Challenge tested whether components of an Open Radio Access Network (Open RAN), such as antennas and radio base stations, can work together to ultimately create a multi-vendor subsystem end-to-end (E2E) 5G network. 

Following President Biden’s State of the Union Address in January, NTIA announced that it would take a strict approach to enforcing Build America, Buy America requirements for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. Now we’re ready to provide more specifics.

The justification for a firm approach to enforcement is clear. Internet for All is a once-in-a-generation investment to expand and upgrade America’s high-speed Internet networks, with $42.45 billion in funds from the BEAD program alone. Those American tax dollars should be used to buy products made in America and to create hundreds of thousands of American jobs.

That’s why NTIA is proposing a limited and targeted waiver of Build America, Buy America provisions for the BEAD Program that follows this strict approach to enforcing rules that protect and create American jobs.

By Kate Dimsdale, NTIA Telecommunications Policy Specialist

At NTIA, we believe that open and interoperable networks are the future of wireless technologies, including 5G and its successors. Such networks will increase the reliability of our telecom supply chain, drive competition and provide our allies with additional choices for trustworthy equipment.

Right now, the wireless network equipment market is highly consolidated, with just a few companies supplying the equipment necessary to support a network. But Open Radio Access Networks, or Open RAN, would unlock that system to allow different companies to compete to supply equipment for different parts of the network. Those different components will be compatible and interoperable with each other. Think of it as similar to the different options for tires that car makers have, or how home Internet users can buy different and competing routers for their WiFi service.

The U.S. Government believes in the promise of these networks. NTIA is administering a $1.5 billion Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund to promote the development and deployment of open and interoperable equipment in America.

But the wireless equipment ecosystem is global, and we want our allies and partner countries to benefit from this coming shift.