National Telecommunications and Information Administration

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is a federal agency in the United States government responsible for advising the US President on issues related to telecommunications and information technology policies. NTIA is located within the Department of Commerce (DoC). 

NTIA responsibilities include, among others: managing the use of spectrum at federal level; expanding the deployment and use of broadband and other technologies across the country; and developing policies on Internet-related issues such as privacy, cybersecurity, copyright, etc. 

Up to September 2016, NTIA, on behalf of the US Department of Commerce (DoC), contracted the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to perform the IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) functions related the management of global Internet’s systems of unique identifiers. In line with this contract, NTIA maintained an oversight role over the IANA functions: any change to the root zone file of the Domain Name System (DNS) needed to be formally validated by NTIA, on behalf of the DoC. The contract between NTIA and ICANN expired on 1 October 2016, and the stewardship of the IANA functions was transitioned to the global multistakeholder community. Following this transition, NTIA continues to participate, on behalf of the US government, in the Governmental Advisory Committee of ICANN.