News and Events

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.

Every day, across our country, Americans facing emergencies contact 911 with the expectation that their call will be heard and someone will be dispatched quickly to render aid. The professional public safety telecommunicators that keep our 911 system running are the lifeline between the public and our first responders. 

Today, NTIA filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to update the rules governing Telecommunications Service Priority (TSP) so that it better reflects current technologies and industry practices.  NTIA filed the petition and a draft set of updated rules on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

NTIA, on behalf of the First Responder Network Authority, is seeking a new board member for a seat that will become vacant in August, according to a Federal Register notice. The 15-member FirstNet board includes 12 non-permanent members, the Secretary of Homeland Security, U.S. Attorney General and Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

As public safety agencies around the country take advantage of FirstNet, the first nationwide public safety broadband network (NPSBN), NTIA is marking the end of a grant program that helped lay the groundwork for FirstNet’s success.

Today, NTIA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced the opening of the 911 Grant Program, which will provide as much as $110 million to help 911 call centers across the country upgrade equipment and operations to Next Generation (NG911) capabilities.

This week, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration filed a Petition for Rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to update the rules governing Wireless Priority Service (WPS), a program that enables wireless emergency calls to get through if networks are congested.

On May 9, 2018, the U.S. Commerce Department brought together more than 100 small businesses for matchmaking opportunities with AT&T and five first-tier vendors helping AT&T build FirstNet, a nationwide broadband network and related services for first responders. In March 2017, the Department entered into a 25-year contract with AT&T for constructing and operating FirstNet.

NTIA is pleased to announce it has completed making 46 grant awards under the State and Local Implementation Grant Program (SLIGP) 2.0, which will help states and territories prepare for FirstNet’s buildout of the nationwide public safety broadband network.

April 8-14 marks this year’s National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week, when we take time to appreciate and thank the dedicated professionals who staff the thousands of 911 centers throughout the nation. These devoted public servants work quietly on the front lines of emergencies, serving as “the first of our first responders.”

Source: United States Coast Guard

When Congress called for the creation of a nationwide broadband network for public safety in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, lawmakers knew it was important that states play a key role in ensuring that the network meets the needs of local first responders. To implement this goal, the law directed NTIA to establish the State and Local Implementation Grant Program (SLIGP) to support states as they prepare for the launch of the network.

First responders know the deadly consequences of not having a communications network that is reliable and interoperable, a problem highlighted during the September 2001 terrorist attacks and Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy.  

The U.S. Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is working to ensure our nation’s first responders have access to the most advanced communications when responding to an emergency or natural disaster.

With the start of summer comes the beginning of the hurricane season along much of the U.S. coast.  And with hurricanes comes the increased possibility that communications could be disrupted.

NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) in Boulder, CO, has been hard at work for years on research aimed at giving first responders next-generation technology that will help save lives.

Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information Lawrence Strickling was honored today for his leadership on behalf of the Obama administration’s efforts to enact wireless deployment and public safety provisions in the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012.

Last week, over 350 representatives from public safety organizations, Federal agencies, industry and academia converged in Broomfield, Colorado to learn about the latest developments in public safety broadband technologies.  The conference was sponsored by the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program, a joint effort between NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) research laboratory and NIST's