The Department of Commerce (DOC) operates two telecommunications1 research laboratories located at its Boulder, Colorado, campus: the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA’s) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST’s) Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL).
The Boulder telecommunications laboratories currently play an important role in the economic vitality of the country and can play an even greater role given the importance of access to spectrum and spectrum sharing to the wireless networking and mobile cellular industries. Research advances are needed to ensure the continued evolution and enhancement of the connected world the public has come to expect. In addition to familiar portable communication and computing devices, anticipated deployment of a variety of new, connected “smart” devices will demand more access to spectrum and advanced networked communication technologies. The economic value of spectrum as a natural resource is illustrated by the $41 billion in revenue from the 2014-2015 advanced wireless services (AWS)-3 auction. New wireless applications such telehealth, machine-to-machine communications, and augmented reality will fuel further demand for wireless communications. The Boulder telecommunications laboratories serve an important role in communications research and engineering for the nation. Key areas include spectrum measurement and propagation modeling; applied research on wireless network access technologies; and applied research, testing, and evaluation of newly developed technologies. ITS and CTL also provide technical support to other federal agencies and the private sector, principally for spectrum measurement and analysis of spectrum sharing and service coexistence. ITS and CTL participate in several formal collaborative structures. The Public Safety Communication Research Program (PSCR), a long-standing (and well-regarded) collaboration between NIST and NTIA, is also collocated with ITS and CTL in Boulder. NTIA and NIST established the new Center for Advanced Communications (CAC) in 2014 to coordinate ITS and CTL programs on spectrum research and other communications work central to the goals of the DOC and established the National Advanced Spectrum and Communications Test Network (NASCTN) in 2015 to organize a network of test facilities to support spectrum-related testing, modeling, and analysis.
The Committee on Telecommunications Research and Engineering at the Department of Commerce’s Boulder Laboratories visited the Boulder telecommunications laboratories on April 20-22, 2015, to receive briefings from and hold discussions with ITS and CTL staff to learn about current activities of the laboratory, its strengths and weaknesses, and plans for the near future. The sections below provide the committee’s assessment of ITS, followed by discussion of two crosscutting topics—opportunities for collaboration between ITS and CTL and satisfying long-term national communications network infrastructure (both wired and wireless) research needs and long-term implications for both laboratories. The committee suggests a two-prong strategy for developing technical expertise and research goals in
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1 The term telecommunications is used throughout this report to mean technology-mediated communications and data transfer. Numerous applications, outside of what was historically termed telecommunications (telephony), today take advantage of a vast and complex communications network infrastructure that encompasses the Internet, traditional telephony, wireless technologies, communications satellites, and many other modes of communication. An expanded definition of telecommunications that is inclusive of a wide array of communications technologies and infrastructure and the applications that take advantage of it is imperative when considering the national research needs for advanced communications infrastructure.
telecommunications. First, ITS will need to establish a near-term research strategy that focuses on key national priorities such as spectrum sharing. Second, the DOC will need to develop short- and long-term applied and basic research plans to support national goals in areas such as spectrum sharing, service coexistence, and spectrum repurposing to ensure the most efficient use of its laboratories in achieving these goals.
ASSESSMENT OF THE INSTITUTE FOR TELECOMMUNICATION SCIENCES
For its assessment of ITS, the committee was tasked to examine the institute’s performance, resources, and capabilities and the extent to which these meet customer needs. (Appendix A provides the committee’s statement of task.) The committee was briefed by and met with ITS leadership and staff to discuss current and future projects and gathered documentation regarding their various resources. The committee also interviewed individuals from companies and federal agencies (see Appendix B) who have worked with ITS through cooperative research and development (R&D) and interagency agreements (CRADAs). In summary, ITS could provide an essential service to the nation by being a principal provider of instrumentation and spectrum measurement services; however, the inter-related shortages of funding, staff, and a coherent strategy limits its ability to fully function as a research laboratory.
Capabilities and Performance
ITS’s mission includes research that “enhances scientific knowledge and understanding in cutting-edge areas of telecommunications technology” and research that “helps to drive innovation and contributes to the development of communications and broadband policies that enable a robust telecommunication infrastructure.”2 It “serves as a principal Federal resource for solving the telecommunications concerns of other Federal agencies, state and local Governments, private corporations and associations, and international organizations.” (Box 1.1 contains ITS’s full mission statement.) ITS describes its research portfolio as having four main thrusts: enhancing spectrum utilization, propagation modeling, improving telecommunications network performance, and public safety communications. Additionally, ITS has provided unique technical testing services and support to the public safety community in the area of public safety communications and other technical services. ITS also performs some research on end-user applications, such as measurement and modeling of the perceived quality of digital audio and video. ITS staff noted that demand for this latter work has declined over time as have their technical capabilities in this area.
Measurement, testing, modeling, and analysis are essential to facilitate coexistence and spectrum sharing of technologies that use the radio frequency spectrum for applications such as wireless local area networks (LANs), mobile cellular, and radar. Although there are a few other laboratories, both within the Department of Defense (DOD) and in the private sector, that have the resources and knowledge to deploy staff and hardware to a particular site to test/verify interference between users, the combination of expertise, physical resources, and objectivity (i.e., their status as a trusted agent in performing and reporting on measurements and analysis) are exclusive to ITS. The value to the nation of ITS as a trusted neutral party is likely to grow as the need to arbitrate the various potential uses of spectrum continues to increase.
FINDING: ITS has extensive capabilities in public safety, radio-spectrum sensing, propagation modeling, and interference analysis. It is recognized by other government agencies (and, to some extent,
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2 See National Telecommunications and Information Administration, “ITS Mission and History,” http://www.its.bldrdoc.gov/about-its/its-mission-history.aspx, accessed October 26, 2015.
private industry) for its objectivity, expertise, and physical resources; it is the historically trusted expert in certain areas of spectrum and communication engineering; and it is an essential provider of these services to government agencies.
RECOMMENDATION: ITS should maintain its capabilities in order to remain a principal provider of instrumentation and spectrum measurement services to other federal agencies and be available to commercial entities to provide services that cannot be found elsewhere.
Resources
The level of funding directly appropriated to ITS varies from year to year but makes up about a third to a half of the laboratory’s total annual budget on average. The balance of ITS funding comes from cost reimbursement agreements with other federal agencies, work for NTIA’s Office of Spectrum Management (OSM), and a very small percentage from CRADAs and other arrangements with private entities (just $150,000 in total over the past 3 fiscal years).3 Its reliance on reimbursable work limits the ability of ITS staff to set research priorities or focus on the long-term research needed to meet the future needs of the telecommunication industry or to achieve national goals to use and share spectrum more efficiently. Indeed, ITS staff acknowledged that several recent projects did not align well with ITS’s core mission and were taken on to ensure operational continuity and staff positions. Furthermore, even when cost-reimbursable work is aligned with significant national priorities, fragmentation into small customer-focused projects makes it difficult to fashion a coherent or sustained research program.
With declining, or at best flat, budgets for the past decade, ITS has been operating with a very lean and aging workforce. Without the resources to bring on new staff to overlap with experienced senior staff that are now (or soon to be) eligible to retire, ITS risks losing valuable know-how. Even when it has the funds to hire new staff, ITS has trouble attracting talent due in part to its location far from central technology hubs and low government salary scales compared to industry. Also, because it currently lacks direct-hire authority, ITS must work through a lengthy hiring process defined and managed by the Office of Personnel Management, which can take up to 6 months or more.
Bureaucratic barriers also limit ITS’s ability to purchase basic computing equipment and instrumentation. For example, the committee learned of a senior manager who had not been assigned a computer for many months. The laboratory equipment acquisition process has also become slow and cumbersome compared to state-of-the-art equivalents. This cumbersome process—coupled with limited funding—has limited ITS’s ability to replace aging equipment or purchase cutting-edge technology for testing. In particular, ITS has not been able to maintain its very valuable Table Mountain Field Site and Radio Quiet Zone, which has led to their underutilization. The site comprises 1,800 acres sitting atop a flat butte and includes a broad range of facilities: a spectrum research laboratory; an open field radio test site; mobile test vehicles; a 10-meter turntable; and two 18.3-meter (60 foot) parabolic antennas. The facility has gradually fallen into disuse and disrepair and currently hosts only a few experiments. Also, in recent years, the DOC mandated that ITS’s research networks comply with Office of Management and Budget rules intended for federal enterprise networks, which impose security requirements that appear overly rigid for networks used for research purposes.
Mission, Strategy, and Customer Needs
ITS has limited resources but demanding research and analysis obligations that are only expected to grow as spectrum and communications needs continue to become both more urgent and more numerous.
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3 Financial data provided to the committee by Brian Lane, Executive Officer, ITS, June 1, 2015.
As demand for spectrum increases, there is a critical need for the government to maintain a trusted capability that permits regulatory agencies to evaluate vendor claims for new spectrum-sharing techniques and technology. In particular, new methodologies for verifying spectrum-sharing schemes, as well as detecting violations of sharing policies, are required. Given adequate resources and the ability to hire appropriate staff, ITS would be able to provide this capability moving forward.
A strategic plan would allow ITS to identify the overall research portfolio needed to fulfill its mission. It would also characterize the elements it cannot accomplish due to limited resources or expertise and identify places where ITS could work with other industry, university, or government laboratories to perform some functions, provided that this collaborative work remains within ITS’s mission. This planning exercise, which could include external review to ensure that it meets national needs, would also allow ITS to define new long-term research directions, as well as the skills and equipment it needs.
Over the past 3 years, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and various organizations within the DOD have provided the funding for a significant portion of the total ITS budget. Given its reliance on reimbursable funding, a dependence on just a few customers puts at risk ITS’s trusted agent status. One way to grow the customer base is to attract additional private sector customers. Although ITS is well known in the government, its work is less known in the private sector. Expanding ITS’s private customer base would expand its relevance and its connectivity to real-world problems and challenges. While the customers the committee interviewed spoke highly of ITS’s work, the majority expressed concerns over the lengthy process to put a formal agreement in place.
Opportunities for engaging with the private sector include increased participation in key standard-setting organizations, such as the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee standardizing the lower-layer Internet network interfaces, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) standardizing cellular infrastructure and end devices, and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standardizing higher-layer Internet protocols; more publishing by staff in peer-reviewed publications; and participation in relevant research conferences.
Not all of ITS’s current challenges are due to limited funding. The committee is aware of past leadership challenges that diminished its focus on its core mission and its ability to articulate that mission, both internally and externally, and obtain the necessary resources and authorities. ITS was also without a permanent director for the past year. With new leadership in place, ITS has an opportunity to refocus on its traditional strengths and rebuild programs in spectrum and telecommunications, its key mission areas.
FINDING: Due to limited direct appropriations, ITS relies too heavily on customer-funded projects, including work outside its core mission.
FINDING: ITS’s staff capacity and capability and financial resources are inadequate for keeping up with future communication, networking, and spectrum research and engineering needs. Without additional resources and updated skills in critical areas, ITS will not be able to effectively identify and perform research and tasks that are essential to furthering advanced communication technologies.
FINDING: The centralization of administrative control has eroded ITS’s capability to perform as a research and engineering laboratory. This includes the ability to nimbly hire staff, procure appropriate equipment, and manage its computer systems.
FINDING: The Table Mountain Field Site and Radio Quiet Zone is not effectively maintained, leading to its underutilization by researchers.
FINDING: Lack of strong leadership over the past decade has left ITS isolated from NTIA, the DOC, and Congress and has contributed to its diminished relevance in the commercial world.
FINDING: Unless the DOC supports ITS by (1) facilitating hiring to maintain the organization’s personnel level and increase the overall technical expertise of the staff, (2) encouraging ITS to establish
an equipment replacement plan, and (3) supporting the procurement and management of needed technology and resources, including improvements to the Table Mountain facility, ITS will not be able to effectively manage its laboratories and execute a strategic plan.
RECOMMENDATION: ITS should develop a strategic plan that identifies the overall research agenda needed to fulfill its mission and create a formal process to ensure that its activities are aligned with its mission, strategy, and national priorities.
RECOMMENDATION: ITS should seek out opportunities to engage in cooperative research and development with industry and academia and expand ITS connections to industry problems and challenges and encourage staff to participate in key standards organizations, attend key research conferences, and increase publications in peer-reviewed publications.
RECOMENDATION: ITS and the Department of Commerce should develop processes that allow for quicker formal agreements between the organization and ITS customers so that ITS can quickly address industry and government needs.
RECOMMENDATION: ITS should establish an advisory board consisting of government, industry, and academic experts to review ITS activities and suggest changes in direction to help ITS best align its work with its mission.
RECOMMENDATION: ITS leadership should communicate regularly with National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the Department of Commerce, and Congress on how its current research priorities and work support NTIA’s mission and national priorities.
COLLABORATION AT THE BOULDER TELECOMMUNICATIONS LABORATORIES
Given that ITS and CTL are both operated by the DOC, are collocated in Boulder, Colorado, and have related missions, it is only natural that they collaborate on key areas of research.4 Current collaborations include PSCR, a long-standing and highly successful collaboration between ITS and NIST, and two newly created collaboration mechanisms, CAC and NASCTN.
For many years, ITS and NIST have provided unique technical testing services and support in the arena of public safety communications and other technical services. Establishment of PSCR has further facilitated the cooperative use of ITS and CTL capabilities to serve the needs of public safety. PSCR is the only provider of objective, non-vendor–driven testing and evaluation services to the public safety community.
CAC, established in 2013 to coordinate research programs between ITS and CTL, is a virtual organization with no staff, funding, or resources of its own. Better coordination of ITS and CTL can leverage telecommunications-related research and engineering capabilities, ensure non-duplication of work, and, at the same time, propel each laboratory to develop and take ownership of its own areas of expertise and capability. The committee notes that it is important to ensure that both laboratories focus on work that reflects their strengths, although the committee is unsure if a formal organization is needed
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4 The committee recognizes that there are potential inefficiencies associated with the Department of Commerce (DOC) operating two separate laboratories with missions related to advanced telecommunication research and radio spectrum and that by merging the laboratories might yield administrative efficiencies and a greater critical mass in resources and talent. Barriers to such a merger include distinct, although overlapping, mission statements, distinct technical and management cultures, and funding that currently comes from different federal appropriation line items. The DOC, as part of the recommended research planning activity, could address these questions.
(versus a process to manage coordination across the Boulder telecommunications laboratories). However, CAC could facilitate this collaboration by serving in a centralized program management role to further national priorities in communications and spectrum use and coordinate research programs outlined by ITS and CTL.
The committee understands the desire to ensure that each laboratory is adequately represented within the new CAC. However, there is significant concern that the current structure of CAC—in which the directors of CTL and ITS are co-leaders of CAC, with no one individual in charge—may make it difficult to set and implement priorities. (PSCR is operated by a program manager from NIST and a deputy program manager from ITS.) CTL and ITS leaders will need to build a collegial relationship with one another and work to build a similar relationship within each research and technical division. This task, while not necessarily technical in nature, will be important if the collaborative goals of CAC—or any other collaboration—are to be met.
NASCTN was established in 2015 to increase commercial and federal access to spectrum by helping to accelerate the design and deployment of spectrum-sharing technologies through accurate testing and modeling. The intent is to create an environment of trust to support impartial testing and evaluation of new spectrum sharing technologies and, ultimately, promote balanced policy decisions that are driven by scientifically sound tests and evaluations. NASCTN is meant to enable sound policy decisions based on effectively engineered sharing solutions produced by member laboratories. NASCTN processes are still in their formative stages and therefore have not proven themselves to be capable of meeting the desired intake and project allocation role.
FINDING: CAC is in the very early stages of planning and development. The current co-leadership structure may make setting and implementing priorities challenging.
FINDING: PSCR is an example of successful collaboration between ITS and CTL, providing essential public communication services to the federal government and the public safety community.
FINDING: NASCTN, as described, would respond to important national needs, but its processes are still in their formative stages; therefore, it has not yet demonstrated its ability to meet these needs or to effectively coordinate use of federally supported test facilities.
RECOMMENDATION: ITS and CTL leadership should work to build an environment of trust and collaboration across both laboratories.
RECOMMENDATION: The Public Safety Communications Research Program should be considered as a template for collaboration across the laboratories.
RECOMMENDATION: The National Advanced Spectrum and Communications Test Network should be made fully functional as soon as possible to be able to handle the important mission that it has been assigned. This includes the recruitment of customers and additional government, academic, and industrial organizations to utilize the skills in the various affiliated laboratories.
NATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS RESEARCH NEEDS AND THE FUTURE ROLE OF THE BOULDER TELECOMMUNICATIONS LABORATORIES
Today, there are more wireless connections to the Internet than wired, and the proportion will continue to increase as the volume of wireless Internet connections continues to grow very rapidly.5 Future demand for wireless communication will come from both conventional wireless networks’ endpoints (cellphones, tablets, laptops, and radio and TV receivers) and an expansion in the number and type of new connected devices, including vehicles, sensors of many types, appliances, thermostats, and other familiar objects, even light bulbs (the Internet of Things). Meeting these demands will depend on better understanding of technical challenges in three principal areas: (1) spectrum use, management, and enforcement; (2) system-level optimization and related issues; and (3) public safety and, more generally, mission-critical communications research (these are explored in-depth in Chapter 4).
Spectrum management—and associated technologies and standards—are major features of today’s communication landscape. With an ever-increasing demand for spectrum, an increase in the desire to share, disagreements about use, and interference between devices are inevitable. The ramifications of spectrum management on economic activity and national security are immense because spectrum resources are fundamental to wireless network capacity. The government plays a key role in managing spectrum through the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates commercially used spectrum, and NTIA, which manages federal agency use. ITS has, and with the addition of CTL, should continue to have, a significant impact on analyzing and measuring proposed approaches to more efficient spectrum management (Box 4.1 provides examples of challenges that arise when technical analysis is not provided). In the process, the laboratories have an opportunity to develop novel approaches to spectrum management, which can become a fundamental asset to the country.
The Boulder telecommunications laboratories are in an excellent position—provided they are sufficiently funded and staffed—to provide independent and objective evaluations of proposed sharing standards and to test equipment and systems for compliance with emerging standards-based sharing protocols, because few other organizations can provide this capability. This will benefit U.S. regulatory agencies, the FCC and NTIA, in their pursuit to preserve existing services while enabling new services to operate with limited and increasingly valuable spectrum resources. In undertaking research, the Boulder telecommunications laboratories will need to balance the need for cutting-edge research with the need for application-based knowledge in spectrum use, ensure that their research portfolio is broad enough to ensure that its researchers are able to anticipate changes in the direction of commercial technology, and position themselves to provide technology for measuring interference and develop new ways to manage interference.
The Boulder telecommunications laboratories have opportunities to take on additional responsibilities and leadership with regards to techniques and standardized approaches to spectrum measurement and, more generally, the technology standards needed for telecommunications. Interoperability standards are of critical importance to both the data-communications and cellular mobile communications industries. They enable a large number of vendors to supply the components necessary to assemble the vast and complex wired and wireless network infrastructure critical to connecting citizens and business in the United States and throughout the world. Interoperability standards are an essential ingredient in today’s dynamic and growing online economy. Both ITS and CTL currently work with network and mobile standard-setting organizations in a limited way, but this engagement will need to be reassessed to ensure that their participation aligns with their missions. There are areas where CTL and ITS involvement is strong and aligns with DOC missions; however, there are other areas where they are participating in efforts not aligned with national needs.
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5 Cisco, “Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update 2014-2019 White Paper,” February 3, 2015, http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/visual-networkingindex-vni/white_paper_c11-520862.html.
FINDING: Advances in communications and networking technologies will have significant positive social and economic impact provided that the associated increasing demand for wireless communications can be met. New spectrum (both licensed and unlicensed) to support increased use of mobile and the Internet of Things devices has been slow in emerging. There is a need for neutral, technical expertise to determine when spectrum is underutilized, review technology for shared use, and evaluate interference and enforcement.
RECOMMENDATION: The Department of Commerce (DOC) should develop short- and long-term application and basic research plans that would provide the country with the necessary knowledge base in spectrum areas and enhance the capability for spectrum sharing and repurposing analysis. The DOC plans should include opportunities for various users of spectrum to identify their needs and long-term objectives. A research agenda should consider the most efficient use of DOC’s—and the relevant laboratories’—resources and develop an effective organizational structure and funding strategies to ensure that research goals are met and resources are effectively used.
RECOMMENDATION: The Boulder telecommunications laboratories should expand their visible leadership roles by providing technical expertise for agencies and policy makers and providing objective scientific expertise.
RECOMMENDATION: The Boulder telecommunications laboratories should fully engage in the current and emerging work in IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project, and the Internet Engineering Task Force. This must be a long-term commitment, because the time constant for standards evolution is on the order of 3 to 10 years.
