National Telecommunications and Information Administration

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced it has awarded three additional grants as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. These grants, totaling $1.5 million, are being awarded to the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians in Lincoln (OR) and two Alaskan villages: the Village of Clarks Point and the Native Village of Selawik.

The US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is requesting public comment on a wide range of policy and program considerations associated with new broadband grant programs authorized and funded by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program, the Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program, and the State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) now includes 38 states, two US territories, and five federal agencies: US Department of Agriculture (USDA), US Department of the Treasury, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), the Economic Development Administration (EDA) and the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC). The NBAM is a geographic information system platform which allows for the visualization and analysis of federal, state, and commercially available data sets.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) released the first ACCESS BROADBAND Report, which highlights the accomplishments of NTIA’s recently established Office of Internet Connectivity and Growth (OICG) over the past year.

The Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded two additional grants as part of the Tribal Broadband Connectivity Program. These grants, totaling nearly $1 million, are being awarded to the Yavapai-Apache Nation in Arizona and the Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin.

The security and privacy landscape has continued to evolve since NTIA first asked about it in the 2015 Internet Use Survey. High-profile data breaches and debates about the role of technology in people’s lives have kept concerns about privacy and security in the forefront. The spread of emerging technologies such as smart home devices and always-on voice assistants, as well as business models predicated on the collection, use, and sale of personal information, means these concerns have taken on increased urgency.

The US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it has received more than 200 applications for the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program, resulting in more than $833 million in funding requests for the purchase of broadband internet service, equipment, or devices, among other project goals.

The Broadband Infrastructure Program is a $288 million broadband deployment program directed to facilitate partnerships between a state, or one or more political subdivisions of a State, and a provider of fixed broadband service to support broadband infrastructure deployment to areas lacking broadband. In their applications, which are currently undergoing review, applicants indicated their projects' proposed service areas using census blocks. On December 6, NTIA published additional proposed service areas of applications undergoing review for funding through the Broadband Infrastructure Pro