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 4, 2026
Almost 57 years after President Richard Nixon’s long-distance telephone call — via radio — to the Apollo 11 astronauts, Artemis II marked mankind's return to the lunar neighborhood. With the potential for future space travel, economic development,...
July 1, 2026
In July, the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences celebrates two anniversaries: the entry of John Howard Dellinger into the Federal workforce and the publication of the open-source FORTRAN code for the Irregular Terrain Model (ITM). ...
June 15, 2026
Accurately predicting and modeling the impacts of terrain,...
Recent Research Publications
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Ryan S. McCullough et al., “Propagation Analysis of Signal of Opportunity Measurements in Green Bank,” Technical Report NTIA TM 26-583, August 2026
Very high frequency propagation measurements were obtained from signal of opportunity transmissions collected during public safety communications field campaigns within the National Radio Quiet Zone surrounding Green Bank, West Virginia. Measured pa...
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Lucjan Janowski et al., “Fix Your Netflix Experiment,” Journal Article, June 2026
This work has been submitted to the IEEE for possible publication. Copyright may be transferred without notice, after which this version may no longer be accessible. This paper examines the hypothesis that asking people about video quality changes t...
This Month in ITS History
August 1912: Federal Regulation of U.S. Airwaves Begins
On August 13,1912, Congress passed the Radio Act of 1912 (Public Law 264), the first federal regulation on all radio transmissions in the United States. Prompted by the Titanic disaster earlier in the year this bill mandated trained radio users to monitor distress signals for any passenger ship in American waters. The...