NTIA Blog

Starting this week, federal program staff from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will begin post-award site visits to get a first-hand perspective on project progress and oversee grant recipients of the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program (BTOP), a portfolio that approaches $4 billion in federal infrastructure investments. As a core component of the Program’s comprehensive monitoring strategy, these comprehensive visits will allow us to evaluate grant recipients' performance in meeting milestones and complying with grant terms and conditions.

NTIA uses a variety of tools to monitor grantee progress, including regular conference calls, detailed review of quarterly reports, and careful tracking of the expenditure of federal funds. Site visits are a critically important tool to corroborate information provided in written reports and to inspect equipment paid for by the federal government.

Our program staff will be digging deeper on the site visits and, like any good stewards of funds, will be focusing on the core areas of program performance:

(1) Project management - Is the project on time and meeting milestones?

(2) Financial management - Is the project on budget?

(3) Grants management - Are grant recipients and subrecipients meeting all relevant federal requirements?

At the conclusion of each site visit, NTIA will follow up with grantees to discuss any areas of concern and map out next steps including whatever customized technical assistance may be appropriate to keep projects on track. As necessary, we may also describe corrective actions to be taken by the recipient based on observations and conclusions drawn from the site visit.

NTIA takes its oversight responsibilities very seriously and will work closely with our grant recipients to ensure these critical investments bring benefits to the American people.

On Wednesday I spoke at a League of United Latin American Citizens conference about how BTOP is expanding broadband access and adoption in the Latino community. Though it’s been roughly 15 years since the “digital divide” gained national attention, the issue remains a serious one for Latinos. In fact, NTIA’s Digital Nation Report shows that even after adjusting for income and other socioeconomic characteristics, Latino households lag White households in broadband adoption by 14 percentage points.

This issue is growing in importance as computer skills and high-speed Internet access are increasingly vital to full economic and civic participation in American society. In terms of employment, for example, a recent study shows that between 1998 and 2008, the number of domestic IT jobs grew by 26 percent, four times faster than U.S. employment as a whole. By 2018, IT employment is expected to grow by another 22 percent.

LULAC is on the front lines of addressing the Latino broadband gap through its network of technology centers and its partnership with BTOP grantee One Economy, which is conducting a comprehensive digital literacy program in 50 cities and towns. LULAC is helping One Economy bring its Digital Connectors program to Latino communities in need, providing technology training for students who will in turn serve as community ambassadors of broadband opportunities.

Other BTOP grantees with projects targeted to the Latino community include:

The rapid growth of the Internet economy has provided educational, economic, and social benefits to consumers and businesses. But with these growing benefits comes growing unease about how consumer's personal information on the Internet is collected, used, and protected.

Preserving consumer trust is essential to the sustainability and continued growth of the Internet economy. Data privacy day provides an opportunity to reflect on the importance of privacy policies that promote online trust and broadband use.

Whether making purchases online, communicating with family members, or conducting business - consumers must know that they have control over their personal information. As innovative new applications and services are developed, it is important that users know that their information is safe and that providers have clear rules about how to respect individual privacy.

As more and more personal data is collected on the Internet, policy makers need to ensure the consumer trust that is an essential foundation of the digital economy and broadband use.

The Commerce Department's Internet Policy Task Force, in which NTIA plays a leading role, released a privacy "green paper" in December. The report proposes an approach to privacy that can promote innovation while increasing consumer trust, including committing to baseline privacy principles and convening stakeholders to craft enforceable codes of conduct to implement those principles. Those codes of conduct would then be adopted as binding commitments by companies to be legally enforced by the Federal Trade Commission.

700-MHz Demonstration Stakeholder Meeting in Boulder

Earlier this month, representatives from each of the seven BTOP 700 MHz wireless broadband public safety projects spent time at the Department of Commerce Research Labs in Boulder learning about the most recent developments in LTE wireless broadband technology.

Approximately 300 stakeholders, who were interested in the new wireless broadband technology and how this commercial technology could be adapted by public safety using the 700 MHz broadband spectrum, attended the meeting. Attendees included representatives from state, local, and federal government agencies, equipment manufacturers, cellular service providers, and other stakeholder associations. It was one of the largest events ever held at the Boulder campus and included opening remarks by Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Greg Schaffer and NTIA Deputy Administrator Anna Gomez.

This event was sponsored by the Public Safety Communications Research (PSCR) program, a government-sponsored program that performs research to advance public safety communications interoperability. PSCR is a joint effort between the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Office of Law Enforcement Standards and NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences. The PSCR program is building a 700-MHz Public Safety Broadband Demonstration Network to provide manufacturers and first responders a location for early deployment of their public safety systems in a multi-vendor, neutral, host environment.