GAO Renews Pressure on NTIA Over Spectrum, Broadband Coordination
Auditors say agency has implemented just one of 11 priority recommendations issued last year.
Jericho Casper
WASHINGTON, July 1, 2026 – Federal auditors said the National Telecommunications and Information Administration has implemented just one of 11 priority recommendations the Government Accountability Office identified last July.
In a June 22 letter addressed to NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth, the GAO urged NTIA to give “high priority” to recommendations that remain unfulfilled, which include: improving how it coordinates federal spectrum use, modernizing aging IT systems, and tightening oversight of multibillion-dollar broadband funding programs.
The latest letter follows a July 2025 GAO report identifying 11 priority recommendations for NTIA.
As of May 2026, NTIA had 22 open GAO recommendations, including 10 designated as priority recommendations – meaning implementation could significantly improve government operations, reduce waste, or eliminate mismanagement.
“NTIA has made significant progress addressing the GAO’s spectrum management, IT modernization and broadband recommendations,” an NTIA spokesperson told Broadband Breakfast.
“We are seeking closure of several of the recommendations and look forward to working with GAO to support our closure requests,” the spokesperson said.
Overall, NTIA has implemented 75 percent of GAO recommendations, slightly below the governmentwide implementation rate of 77 percent. Some of the outstanding recommendations date back to 2021–2022, during the Biden administration.
Those include recommendations, issued in 2021, calling for NTIA’s administrator to update interagency spectrum coordination guidance and develop standardized procedures for federal spectrum sharing studies.
GAO has similarly been calling for NTIA to improve interagency coordination on federal broadband efforts since May 2022, when it reported finding significant fragmentation and overlap across initiatives. NTIA is currently administrating a $42.5 billion federal broadband expansion program.
In its response during the Biden administration, then-NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson acknowledged the need for greater program alignment but emphasized that “alignment can be challenging,” noting that programs are authorized at different points in time and impose different deployment obligations, timelines, and technical specifications.
In the letter, GAO recommended that NTIA better communicate projects’ financial sustainability to Congress and continue to improve collaboration with other federal providers currently overseeing more than $82 billion in broadband funding.
“Taking these steps will help ensure Congress is properly informed about the finances of NTIA’s programs and reduce potential waste in broadband programs,” the letter, attributed to Heather Krause, managing director of physical infrastructure for GAO, states.
GAO also urged NTIA to strengthen planning and cybersecurity as it modernizes the aging IT systems used to manage federal spectrum.
While the agency awarded contracts in 2024 to update those systems, auditors said NTIA has yet to implement key planning and cybersecurity practices needed to help ensure the modernization effort is successful and better protect critical federal infrastructure.
“Fully implementing the remaining priority open recommendations could significantly improve NTIA’s operations,” the letter states.
GAO is an independent agency that oversees how taxpayer dollars are spent.
