Remarks of Assistant Secretary Arielle Roth at the Princeton NextG Symposium

Remarks of Arielle Roth
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Communications and Information
National Telecommunications and Information Administration
Princeton NextG Symposium
May 7, 2026

Good morning. It is a great honor to join the Princeton NextG Symposium as a public servant among such a distinguished group of engineers.

For those of you who aren't familiar with NTIA, we are the federal agency principally responsible for advising the President on telecommunications and information policy issues.

Our core mission is to maximize America's communications capabilities and infrastructure. That encompasses our work ensuring universal broadband availability, supporting the Administration's push for America's AI dominance, and enabling innovation in wireless networks while promoting efficient use of our spectrum resources.

NTIA manages federal use of spectrum-the invisible airwaves that help keep our country safe, connect our first responders in moments of crisis, guide airplanes through the skies, and enable everything from GPS navigation to the smartphones in our pockets.

As many of you know, in a few short months we will celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of this great nation. During the American Revolution, pamphlets and hand-delivered letters carried ideas across the colonies, taking days, weeks-even in some cases months-to arrive. Yet even then, the call of freedom spread, and our nation was born.

Early in the war, George Washington and his Continental Army suffered a devastating defeat on Long Island-in part because of communications and intelligence failures. Washington lacked sufficient guards at a critical intersection, had limited calvary to relay intelligence, and had little knowledge of the Long Island terrain. Fortunately, by the Battle of Princeton in 1777, the tide of the war was beginning to turn.

From there, American ingenuity drove major advancements in communications, from the telegraph and telephone to radio and television-and each era expanded how Americans connected with the world around them. These breakthroughs accelerated the flow of information, made long distances feel smaller, and laid the foundation for the modern digital age.

This week actually marks NTIA's 48th Anniversary. When NTIA was established in 1978, communications were still largely analog-dominated by landline telephones, broadcast networks, and limited satellite links. The internet, as we know it today, did not yet exist. Mobile phones were only beginning to emerge, and the smartphone was still science fiction.

Information moved at a pace measured in hours or days-certainly an improvement from 1776, but not yet in milliseconds. In the 48 years since, the transformation has been extraordinary. The rise of the internet, wireless connectivity, smartphones, and now AI-driven tools has reshaped nearly every aspect of daily life and the economy, taking us from analog systems to an always-on, globally connected world where communication is instant, ubiquitous, and central to our security and opportunity. What makes this period remarkable is not just the amount of change, but the pace of it-the speed of innovation over the last 48 years has surpassed anything seen in the prior two centuries of American history.

I witnessed firsthand my own dependence on today's technology during a nine-hour flight home from Geneva last week. On that flight, we had no Wi-Fi. For nine hours. I had no choice but to hand edit a document. While this wasn't quite 1776-I used a pen rather than a quill-I truly couldn't imagine how I was going to get through nine hours of disconnection.

Unlike this unfortunate episode of European air travel, the Trump Administration is pushing America to the technological frontier, building on the communications successes our nation has achieved in the last 250 years. A huge part of this involves spectrum policy, the necessary ingredient to technology like 5G and 6G networks, AI, drones, integrated sensing, satellite communications, and beyond.

Last year, Congress passed the Working Families Tax Cut Act and gave NTIA a first-of-its-kind mandate: identify 500 MHz of federal spectrum for commercial use within five years, including at least 200 MHz within two years.

In December, the President went further, directing NTIA to complete its study of the 7 GHz band within 12 months and immediately begin studying whether portions of the 2.7 GHz and 4 GHz bands can be reallocated for full-power commercial licensed use.

These bands offer the right mix of coverage and capacity, as well as opportunities for larger contiguous channels needed for 6G. They have the potential to unleash new frontiers of commercial innovation while enabling the modernization of incumbent federal systems.

This level of alignment across Congress and the Administration is rare and cannot be taken for granted. We've seen in prior administrations how momentum can stall without strong leadership from the White House.

At NTIA, we are moving with urgency to modernize federal operations, improve efficiency, and get more spectrum into the marketplace.

Our goal is to meet and hopefully exceed Congress' timeline to find the spectrum that will power the next generation of wireless innovation. I'm constantly pushing NTIA's engineers to expedite our identification of key bands, and I am confident we will get the job done before the end of this Administration. I look forward to delving into status of the bands we are studying and how we plan to meet our targets during today's Q&A.

I also want to highlight a new tool NTIA unveiled yesterday that will track our progress in real time. As a former Hill staffer, I always found federal spectrum policy to be a black box-a frustration I know many in academia and industry have also experienced when trying to access data and visibility into the processes shaping spectrum decisions. This lack of transparency undermines trust and limits collaboration needed for serious research and analysis. We've set out to change that with the launch of Spectrum.gov.

This new resource will provide transparent updates on the actions we are taking to enable 6G, improve spectrum management, and unleash the space economy. It brings together NTIA's resources for federal spectrum managers, policymakers, academia, industry, and the public into one easy-to-navigate website. Importantly, it highlights where we stand on the bands NTIA has announced for study and ultimately identification: 1675-1695 MHz, 2.7 GHz, 4 GHz, and 7 GHz.

When we're transparent about our work, it raises the bar for delivering results. Today, I'd like to personally invite everyone in the audience to visit Spectrum.gov and let us know what you think-and what more we could include to strengthen this resource.

In all of our work, we are eager to partner with industry and the academic researchers on the front lines of the next generation of wireless. Government can help set the conditions for innovation, but ultimately it's up to industry to develop the technologies that will transform the world and cement American leadership.

We have come a long way since the days of communication by horseback, by telegraph or fax machine. The 250th anniversary of our founding is a reminder that we carry forward an American tradition of ingenuity, resilience, and progress. As we build the technologies and networks of the future, we are carrying forward a long American tradition of leading from the frontier of innovation. We intend to meet this moment with the same spirit of ambition and leadership.

Thank you, and I look forward to our conversation.