National Telecommunications and Information Administration

The week of May 8, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is joining communities, organizations and broadband advocates in recognizing Digital Inclusion Week and the important work being done by digital inclusion programs across the country. NTIA's BroadbandUSA program offers guidance, assistance and resources to help build the capacity of digital inclusion programs. A few highlights:

In March, New Orleans launched the Digital Equity Challenge to seek solutions for increasing technology use in its underrepresented communities. BroadbandUSA supported the City of New Orleans Office of Information Technology and Innovation by sharing information about federal broadband data sources and connecting New Orleans to other cities that had developed similar initiatives.

The Virgin Islands Next Generation Network (link is external) (ViNGN) recently purchased a mobile computer lab to expand its training and outreach programs throughout the United States Virgin Islands. BroadbandUSA shared best practices from other rural broadband programs, including the use of mobile labs, with ViNGN.

In 2016, BroadbandUSA collaborated with the National Resource Network, the International City/County Management Association, and the cities of Chattanooga (TN), Gonzales (CA), Greensboro (NC), New Orleans (LA), Springfield (MO), and Youngstown (OH) to produce the resource guide, "Access and Inclusion in the Digital Age (link is external)." The guide was designed to support communities of all sizes as they work to improve their digital inclusion strategies.

Any agreement to share spectrum bands will require reliable predictions of how that spectrum will perform in the real world. The Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) recently took a major step toward a more collaborative approach to research in this area by publicly releasing an advanced software model for radio wave propagation in urban environments.

This software can be used by consumers, engineers, scientists and others to explore the behavior of radio waves interacting with buildings, trees, and other environmental features. ITS released the software to the public by publishing source code (link is external) on GitHub, an online platform for open-source code. Posting to GitHub will allow researchers to use and modify the code as they wish, as well as collaborate with other researchers and avoid duplicating efforts. ITS hopes that making its source code freely available can advance development of widely accepted propagation models.

One of the four overarching recommendations in the Broadband Opportunity Council's 2015 report was to improve data collection, analysis, and research on broadband. Included in the report was a commitment by NTIA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) to lead the development of a National Broadband Research Agenda to address these topics comprehensively. This Agenda is a synthesis of broad input from academia, the public, and Federal staff, and provides a conceptual framework for potential research proposals and data requirements in four key areas related to U.S. R&D in broadband: technology, deployment, adoption, and socioeconomic impacts. Findings from these proposed research topics will support the continued dynamic growth of the Information and Communications Technology sector and identify effective strategies to address remaining disparities in broadband access, adoption, and choice in the United States.

Agencies have made great strides toward meeting the goals set forth in d the Presidential Memorandum on “Expanding Broadband Deployment and Adoption by Addressing Regulatory Barriers and Encouraging Investment and Training” by fulfilling, and even exceeding, the initial commitments outlined in the Broadband Opportunity Council’s report.

To date, agencies have completed more than one-third of the action items and have made great progress on the remaining action items. The Council has fostered increased collaboration among agencies, identified additional opportunities to improve broadband access, and elevated the importance of broadband as a crosscutting policy objective across the federal government. However, agencies recognize that their work is not complete and will require sustained engagement and interagency coordination for many years to come. Going forward, career-level agency staff will finalize the implementation of the action items and collaborate to fulfill the Council’s mission.

Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) datasets clearly demonstrate these significant gaps in access to broadband infrastructure:

• 10 percent of all Americans (34 million people) lack access to fixed broadband as currently defined by the FCC (25 Mbps downstream/3 mbps upstream).
• 39 percent of rural Americans (23 million people) lack access to fixed broadband.
• 41 percent of Americans living on tribal lands (1.6 million people) lack access to fixed broadband.
• In 2015, 33 million households (27 percent of all U.S. households) did not use the Internet at home, where families can more easily share Internet access and conduct sensitive online transactions privately.
• 26 million households—one-fifth of all households—were entirely offline.

Over the last eight years, our agencies have worked to expand the availability and adoption of broadband in recognition of the increasingly important role that the Internet is playing in every facet of society. Recognizing the opportunity to marshal resources across the entire federal government, President Barack Obama in March 2015 created the Broadband Opportunity Council, co-chaired by the Secretaries of Agriculture and Commerce, which in August 2015 identified a series of executive actions that could be taken through existing agency programs, missions, and budgets to increase broadband deployment, competition, and adoption. We are pleased to report that the 25 participating agencies have made considerable progress toward completing their commitments.

These actions further the goals of modernizing federal programs to expand program support for broadband investments; empowering communities with tools and resources to attract broadband investment and promote meaningful use; promoting increased broadband deployment and competition through expanded access to federal assets; and improving data collection, analysis, and research on broadband. Agencies have completed 15 of the 36 action items and have made significant progress toward finishing most of the others. Among the completed tasks include the release of guidance in January 2016 from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to its HOME Investment Partnerships Program, Housing Trust Fund, and Community Development Block Grant recipients clarifying that program funds can be used for broadband installation infrastructure and service delivery. Meanwhile, the Treasury Department clarified that broadband infrastructure and related activities are eligible for the New Market Tax Credit Program and Community Reinvestment Act community development consideration in certain circumstances, expanding options for communities seeking investment sources for broadband projects.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration hosts a web-based system that collects specific identification information (e.g., entity name, location and projected range of the operation) from applicants seeking authorization by the Federal Communications Commission to operate in radio frequency bands that are shared on a co-primary basis by federal and non-federal spectrum users.

The web-based system provides a means for non-federal applicants to rapidly determine the availability of RF spectrum in a specific location, or the need for detailed frequency coordination of a specific newly proposed assignment within the shared portions of the radio spectrum. It allows proposed radio site information from non-federal applicants to be analyzed, and a real-time determination made as to whether a potential for RF interference to, or from, existing Federal government radio operations exists in the vicinity of the proposed site. This web-based coordination helps expedite the coordination process for non-federal applicants while assuring protection of government data relating to national security. The information provided by non-federal applicants also will assist in the protection of the applicant’s station from interference from future government operations.
The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on this proposed information collection.

If you know FirstNet, then you know we are focused on putting broadband technology into the hands of public safety personnel nationwide. What you may not know is that FirstNet also is leading the way on a host of public safety-focused technologies, not the least of which is in bringing to market the best possible software applications for public safety to use in emergencies and day to day scenarios.

Preceding the Technology Forum, APCO International hosted its third technology workshop; this session’s topic was App Interoperability. The APCO workshop brought together members of FirstNet’s applications team, based in Boulder (CO), with representatives from public safety, government agencies, telecommunications and app designers. In this workshop, participants called for the creation of a tool for developers to use for testing their apps for interoperability and cybersecurity on FirstNet’s network. Open, transparent, and objectives based self-test tools are critical to innovating quickly within the applications ecosystem for several reasons. Transparent tools enhance confidence in the reliability, stability, and security of applications. Such tools enhance the productivity of application developers in validating their efforts prior to further, typically costlier, testing procedures. Finally, online tools are a very cost effective way for demonstrating the functionality of an underlying solution.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration began seeking public comment on the next edition of our Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS), which will go into the field in November 2017 and will build on previous research to track the evolving ways Americans are using new information technology. For more than two decades, the CPS Supplement has been the primary data source for NTIA's research into who goes online, what devices and applications people use on the Internet, and what barriers stand in the way of all Americans effectively utilizing the latest information technologies. Moreover, researchers and policymakers inside and outside of government rely on our surveys in part because of their large sample size--around 53,000 households--as well as their in-depth questions and public dataset availability. The new 2017 survey--NTIA's 14th CPS Computer and Internet Use Supplement--will help us continue to advance Internet policy research and better-inform policymakers. We look forward to feedback on our draft questionnaire and to the great opportunities for analysis that the November 2017 survey will create.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration proposes to add 58 questions to the Census Bureau’s November 2017 Current Population Survey (CPS) to gather reliable data on broadband use by US households through the Computer and Internet Use Supplement. The planned Supplement will be the fourteenth since NTIA began sponsoring such surveys in November 1994. Since that time, NTIA has continually revised the Supplement to reflect developments in Internet technology, applications, and connected devices. The Department of Commerce, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork and respondent burden, invites the general public and other Federal agencies to comment on proposed and/or continuing information collections, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. Comments are due on or before March 10, 2017.

Let me leave you with some final thoughts about what we have learned over the last eight years as well as some issues that I believe need additional attention in the immediate and near term if we are to ensure that 5G and all spectrum based technologies reach their true potential. First, there is no longer any question that spectrum sharing has to be a major part of the solution. Second, as the airwaves become more congested, we need to develop and enforce minimal technical rules to protect against unauthorized harmful interference. Third, as a nation, and really even as a global spectrum community, we must continue to invest in research and development of technologies that will help us make the most effective and efficient use of spectrum. Fourth, I would like to see additional focus to more accurately quantify current spectrum demand, usage and projections of future requirements - for both non-federal and federal use. Technologies and business models change rapidly.