NTIA Blog

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.

One of the main priorities at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration is to accelerate the adoption of an open 5G ecosystem through open interfaces, interoperable subsystems, secure networks, and modular multi-vendor solutions.

A main component of this work is to research and test whether an open 5G ecosystem can work in real-world scenarios. This is where the 2023 5G Challenge comes into play. The 5G Challenge is a research competition and collaboration between the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) in Boulder, Colorado.

The 2023 5G Challenge is offering a $7 million prize pool for participants who successfully integrate their radio access network (RAN) subsystems with multiple other RAN participant subsystems and outperform their peers.

The 2023 5G Challenge consists of multiple stages during which contestants are evaluated and prizes are awarded. During all phases of the competition the host lab ensures that contestant subsystems adhere to 3GPP standards and O-RAN ALLIANCE specifications and identify issues that would hinder multi-vendor integration.

Teams have progressed in testing since starting the challenge in late March. After the first nine weeks of host lab testing, the initial nine contestants have passed Stage Two wrap-around emulation testing.

Stage Two Testing

By Bob Cannon, Senior Telecommunications Policy Analyst, NTIA

My name is Bob.  I am number six.

Do you believe me?

If I were wrong… would you know?

In the 1960s television show “The Prisoner,” retired secret agents are held captive in a place known only as “The Village” and assigned numbers to replace their identities.  Protagonist “Number Six” quickly learns that what one claims to be and what one is can be two different things.

Internet routing is a bit like life in The Village.  One network whispers to a second that it is number six.  The second network then tells two other networks that it can send traffic to number six.  And those two networks tell two more networks that they can reach the network that reaches number six.  And so on.  Networks make routing decisions based on these whispers, following the path back to the network that says it is number six.  Sometimes those whispers are right. Sometimes they are wrong. When they are wrong, Internet traffic can go astray.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration is embarking on an inquiry into whether more privacy protections are necessary for people who have registered “.us” domains on the Internet.

NTIA administers the contract for the country code top-level domain, for the United States, .us. The .us domain is used by American businesses, individuals, and localities.

NTIA’s contractor, Registry Services, is required by the agency to maintain a publicly accessible database of .us domain name registrations. Registry Services provides a directory service that allows anyone to obtain registration data without any authentication.

Personal information – including names, home addresses and phone numbers – is included in the registration database. Concerns have been raised that this information may be misused for abusive purposes, including doxxing, spam, or other harassment.

NTIA is working on multiple fronts to address data privacy concerns. To better protect the personal information of .us domain registration holders, NTIA is seeking comment on a Registry Services’ proposal that would require those that request access to registration data to provide an email address, identify a legitimate purpose, and accept Terms of Service.

Americans increasingly rely on radio spectrum for much of their daily lives. From texting friends to car navigation these airwaves play an invisible but central role.

Much like other important resources, spectrum access is finite. Demand continues to grow. Federal spectrum policy experts recognize this – and have come up with creative new ways to allow greater spectrum access by sharing this vital resource.

One innovative approach is the Citizens Broadband Radio Service, which allows for dynamic spectrum sharing between the Department of Defense and commercial spectrum users. The DOD users have protected, prioritized use of the spectrum. When the government isn’t using the airwaves, companies and the public can gain access through a tiered licensing arrangement.

This means the DOD can use the same spectrum for its critical missions while companies can use it for 5G and high-speed Internet deployment.

This is possible through automated sense-and-avoid dynamic access. This ground-breaking framework was made possible by rules established by the Federal Communications Commission in 2015, technologies standardized and developed by industry, and certification tests executed at NTIA's research and engineering lab, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS).

And there were a lot of questions about whether it would work.

A new report from ITS shows that it is working.