Commerce IG Report to Congress Targets FirstNet, Spectrum, BTOP Concerns
FirstNet’s big challenges “include adequacy of funding, effective consulting, internal control and staffing, and other organizational issues,” the Commerce Department Office of the Inspector General told Congress in its latest semiannual report, listing those among the top management challenges facing…
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Commerce. Another top challenge involves spectrum if the administration wants to reach its goal of freeing up 500 MHz, the report said: “To meet the [administration’s] 2020 deadline, NTIA needs to incorporate lessons learned into actual strategies -- as well as identify the availability of, and more efficient use of, radio frequency spectrum. Also, the termination of the Federal Spectrum Management System presents a challenge to NTIA’s capability to manage spectrum, as it will still need a technological system that can modernize, automate, and integrate key spectrum management functions.” David Smith is still the Commerce acting IG, and senior Senate Republicans urged the administration in August to secure a permanent IG for such oversight responsibilities as FirstNet (see 1508060047). The 64-page report is dated September but was released Wednesday. The Commerce OIG lists two works in progress for NTIA, an audit of FirstNet’s “effectiveness in addressing federal agency challenges with respect to the development and planned operation” and an audit regarding the excess equipment from the Broadband Technology Opportunities Program. The BTOP audit is to “determine whether grantees purchased equipment beyond program needs for commercialization (i.e., whether grantees warehoused equipment)” and assess NTIA’s ways of identifying such excess equipment and evaluating how to deal with it. The Commerce IG also completed an audit of FirstNet and had made several recommendations, it noted. Another work in progress is an audit of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s IT security practices “to determine the significant factors that contributed to the successful cyberattack on NOAA information systems and evaluate NOAA’s handling of the detection, analysis, eradication, and reporting of the attack, as well as recovery from it,” the report said. OIG has “significant concerns with Department-wide cybersecurity,” it said. “The Department must address persistent security deficiencies that make the Department vulnerable to cyber-attacks, improve the quality of security control assessments, and strengthen its incident detection and response capabilities.”