NTIA Blog
Connecting neighbors to high-speed Internet service in rural Texas
2023 5G Challenge Update: Three Contestant Pairs Pass Stage Three End to End Interoperability Testing
Making Internet for All in America: The Next Steps
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.
IPAs On Tap: NTIA’s Role in Cybersecurity Policy
NTIA Promotes 5G Supplier Diversity At Home and Abroad
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.
NTIA Receives More Than 250 Comments to Inform Digital Equity Act Programs
By: Angela Thi Bennett
Affordable, reliable, high-speed Internet service has become essential for individuals and communities in an increasingly digital world. To further the development of the upcoming phases of the Digital Equity Act, we issued a Request for Comment on March 2, 2023. The comment window closed on May 1, 2023, and a wide range of stakeholders from across the country submitted 252 written submissions. NTIA also hosted four public listening sessions reaching more than 400 stakeholders to obtain responses from those who were unable to provide written comments.
The comments and listening sessions will help inform the design and implementation of the $1.44 billion State Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program and the $1.25 billion Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program. All written comments received are available on regulations.gov.
2023 5G Challenge Update: All Nine Contestant Subsystems Pass Stage Two Wrap-around Emulation Testing
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
Three Takeaways from Version 2 of the FCC’s National Broadband Map
Federal programs boost budget for high-speed Internet service
Secure Internet Routing
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.