Spotlight on Commerce: Rebecca Dorch, Senior Spectrum Policy Analyst, NTIA

Spectrum policy is a long game, so the successes, failures, and impacts are not generally immediately apparent or recognized. Thinking about Women’s History Month cannot help but bring to mind Anita Longley, a much-admired spectrum pioneer from the NationalTelecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS). Along with her ITS colleague Phil Rice, in the 1970s Longley developed the Longley-Rice propagation model. The Longley-Rice propagation model (also known as the Irregular Terrain Model or ITM) was developed to improve the reliability of communications systems by harnessing the computational capabilities presented by computers to provide a means by which terrain roughness could be factored into the determination of signal strength. Anita Longley’s propagation model is still used today and many advanced wireless analysis tools have the basic Longley-Rice methodology embedded in their programming. Propagation models are critical to spectrum sharing decision-making and pave the way to 5G and beyond. Indeed, Longley-Rice was one of the propagation models used to establish technical standards for spectrum sharing between military radars and the recently launched Citizens Broadband Radio Service.

[Rebecca Dorch is a Senior Spectrum Policy Analyst at the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences, National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA)]