Official FCC Blog

The FCC’s second annual Chief FOIA Officer Report [10] (Word doc) shows continued progress at the FCC in ensuring public access to Commission records through the Freedom of Information Act and by Internet posting. General Counsel Austin Schlick [11], the FCC’s Chief FOIA Officer, led a review of the Commission’s FOIA operations. Key points in the report include:

• The FCC granted in whole or in part 97.9% of the initial FOIA requests it has received in FY 2011, up from 95.3% in FY 2010 and 94.2% in FY 2009.
• The Commission is expanding the use of redaction software to ensure that records properly withheld under a FOIA exemption are properly redacted and marked with the applicable exemption.
• The increase in records available on FCC.gov [12] has reduced the need of the public to seek records through the FOIA. The FCC has more than doubled the number of pages of records available on its website since 2008. At the same time, the number of initial FOIA requests received by the FCC declined from 659 in FY 2009 to 598 in FY 2010 and is on pace to decline again in FY 2011.
• The already small backlog of FOIA requests and applications for review is being further reduced. 
• Much credit for the smooth handling of the Commission’s FOIA program goes both to members of the Office of Managing Director’s Performance Evaluation and Records Management FOIA staff and to staff throughout the agency that process FOIA requests. They work hard to ensure responses to FOIA requests are timely and complete.

The Chief FOIA Officer welcomes suggestions to help the FCC’s FOIA program continue to operate successfully and to improve.

The National Broadband Map was developed to embody the spirit of the Internet.
Let me explain what I mean. The Internet is a two way street. At its most basic, the National Broadband Map shows how quickly Americans can give and take information over our national networks.
The Internet is also highly dynamic; it is constantly changing. The Map, too, was built to not only support but encourage change.
Since the product launched, we've seen some cool developments that use the Map's building blocks to make other projects better and more powerful. We think these developments lead to new opportunities -- new markets, new jobs, and new ways of tackling tough issues.
Here’s the first big example: The team at Broadband.com has integrated two of the FCC's APIs -- one for Census Block Conversion, the other to access the crowdsourced data points of the FCC Consumer Broadband Speed Test -- into their own mapping tool. This helps show the speed at businesses' locations -- a hugely important data point to surface as the speed of broadband to business and industry only climbs in importance in our connected market place.
On the government side, the excellent data team at the U.S. Department of Education just released a map product that visualizes one of the most vital aspects of broadband deployment in America: broadband availability for U.S. schools. Moving forward, the National Broadband Map will be collecting more information about Community Anchor Institutions – the places like schools and libraries that often are the central locations for public broadband access – that will help grow the functionality in products like the Broadband Availabilty map.

The business and technology landscapes can change quickly. Every three years, the FCC fulfills its Congressionally-mandated review that identifies and eliminates unnecessary rules that no longer benefit the businesses we work with.

This review also helps the commission promote policies that favor a diversity of media voices, vigorous economic competition, and technological advancement.

Section 257 of the Communications Act of 1934 (Communications Act) requires that the FCC review and report to Congress every three years on the Commission’s (1) efforts to identify and eliminate unnecessary regulatory barriers to entrepreneurs and small businesses and (2) and identify and provide proposals to eliminate unnecessary statutory barriers to market entry by those businesses.

In this 2009 Section 257 Report to Congress (2009 Report), the Commission examines regulatory actions taken to reduce market entry barriers by each rule-writing Bureau and Office within the Commission since the last triennial report.  Further, in the 2009 Report, we also make recommendations for legislative action to reduce statutory barriers to market entry.

In addition, as our mandate requires, we also identify other barriers which, if not addressed, have the potential to limit market entry by entrepreneurs and other small businesses.  One such barrier is a general lack of data on minority participation, which could inform decisions and help the Commission gauge the effectiveness of its actions on an ongoing basis.  Another barrier is a lack of outreach to the very parties who could benefit from agency actions.  While the actions described in this report do not curtail these barriers, it is important to recognize them so that they may be addressed in the future.

This morning Chairman Genachowski spoke on spectrum, consumers and America’s small businesses, delivering the keynote address as part of the Mobile Future Forum. He called attention to the growth of broadband in America, the looming spectrum crisis and our solution of voluntary, market-based incentive auctions to free up that spectrum. He emphasized that “we must act” to set the pace for 21st century technology and said, “there’s no other choice than for the U.S. to lead.”

Given the theme, the event was held at Voxiva, a mobile based information solutions firm recently named one of the most innovative companies in the world. Peter Rysavy of Rysavy Research released a report prior to the Chairman’s talk entitled The Spectrum Imperative: Mobile Broadband Spectrum and its impacts for U.S. Consumers and the Economy. Here's an excerpt from the Chairman's speech:

To some, it was a surprise that the Broadband Plan included major sections on mobile broadband. At the time, many assumed that broadband was what you got when you connected your computer to the modem plugged into your wall.…Mobile broadband is being adopted faster than any computing platform in history. The number of smartphones and tablets being sold now exceeds the number of PCs. The Mobile Future report released this morning puts a fine point on this. According to their report, quote, “The clock is ticking, with rising demand and rapidly closing the gap with existing supply. The consequences of inaction are severe, widespread and wholly negative for consumers and the U.S. economy."

The point deserves emphasis: the clock is ticking on our mobile future. Demand for spectrum is rapidly outstripping supply. The networks we have today won’t be able to handle consumer and business needs.