ITS: The Nation’s Spectrum and Communications Lab
Our mission is to ADVANCE innovation in communications technologies, INFORM spectrum and communications policy for the benefit of all stakeholders, and INVESTIGATE our Nation’s most pressing telecommunications challenges through research that employees are proud to deliver.
News
August 20, 2025
Hurry! Postings close 8/27/2025!
ITS has new vacancies for four computer scientists and one electronics technician to help solve the Nation’s most challenging spectrum and communications challenges. These full-time positions are based on the...
February 25, 2025
Adam Hicks (l.) and Robert Achatz (r.) prepare to leave for McMurdo Station. (Photo credit: USAP)
In December 2024, ITS electronics engineers Robert Achatz and Adam Hicks travelled from ITS’s Boulder laboratory...
January 6, 2025
To make the most efficient use of available bandwidth, how much can speech and video be compressed before the end user perceives them as degraded? ITS’s...
Recent Publications
-
Margaret H. Pinson et al., “Test Plans, Results, and Lessons Learned About Open RAN Integration During the NTIA 5G Challenges,” Special Publication NTIA SP-25-578, April 2025
The vision of the 5G Challenge competitions was to accelerate adoption of 5G open interfaces, interoperable subsystems, and multi-vendor solutions by fostering a large, vibrant, and growing vendor community dedicated to advancing 5G interoperability...
-
Frank H. Sanders et al., “NTIA Case Study: Adjacent-Band Coexistence Between 5G Base Station Transmitters and Air Traffic Control Radar Receivers,” Technical Report NTIA TR 25-577, December 2024
The introduction of Fifth Generation New Radio (5G NR) base station transmitters into 2590–2690 MHz in the U.S., adjacent to the spectrum band 2700–2900 MHz used by air traffic control radars, has resulted in interference effects in some safety-of-l...
This Month in ITS History
August 1958: “System Loss in Radio Wave Propagation” Published
Ken Norton’s ground breaking article on “System Loss in Radio Wave Propagation” first appeared in the August 1958 edition of the NBS Journal of Research. The work presented a new concept in propagation studies: transmission loss. Norton’s concept simplified the calculation of signal losses for radio engineers....