Blog Posts by Michael Byrne

Broadband Progress Report Map – Another Digital First [1]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

August 22, 2012

In another digital first for the FCC, we just released an interactive, web-based map [2] that illustrates our Broadband Progress Report. This congressionally mandated report assesses how well broadband deployment and adoption is progressing in the nation. With this new map, our report is more responsive to both Congress and the American people.

This map is great for a bunch of reason. First, as you zoom into the map or pan around, you can explore the intricate details of broadband availability in each and every county in the United States. These details include not just the population, and income numbers from the census, but the percentage of each county that has access to the major fixed technologies providing broadband service. This charting feature is a dynamic and robust way to investigate the data, see how different communities compare to each other, or just look at your home town.

Second, the map allows anyone access to the full set of raw data underlying the report. It used to be that maps like this were only viewed through complicated software or with specialized training. You do not need access to special software, or fancy understanding of intricate bureaucratic processes; all you need is a web browser.

Third, by publishing this map, we make our own processes more open, accountable and effective. It makes the data available to all Americans, not just specialized practitioners

A few more details. These maps are;

Mapping the Mobility Fund Phase I Auction [3]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

July 13, 2012

The FCC is rolling out new mapping tools for the upcoming auction of Mobility Fund Phase I universal service support. The electronic application to participate in this auction displays maps, based on certain information entered in the application, of areas eligible for Mobility Fund Phase I support. Applicants will be able to filter their selections, distinguish between Tribal and non-Tribal areas, and view eligible areas in geographic detail.

Another new use of mapping in the auction process will be implemented in the bidding portion of the FCC Auction System. In the Mobility Fund Phase I auction, bidders will place bids for support on discrete areas know as census blocks (the same unit of measure the US Census Bureau uses for counting people). In this particular auction, the bidders know the full list of the blocks eligible for bidding. The FCC Auction System’s new mapping features allow bidders to visualize their bidding options.

These new mapping tools provide visual portrayal and confirmation of bidding areas, which is a change from the bidding system’s previous text-only identification of areas. As the bidders upload lists of the blocks they want to bid on, we offer them a dynamic map of those areas so they can be sure about the locations of their bids.

We think our dynamic services approach offers significant value to the bidders and demonstrates our commitment to continually make a positive difference. These are the results driven by a team of people deeply invested in creating innovative solutions.

We are proud to offer these kinds of service and are looking forward to further developing such utilities. If you are a bidder, please let us know how to improve it.

Thoughts on the Digital Government Strategy [4]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

May 24, 2012

On a regular basis, I find myself working with increasingly bigger datasets, and investigating increasingly more complicated patterns. However, as data gets bigger and more complicated, government IT budgets are getting smaller. At the same time, the public expects government to quickly provide open access to data in a wide range of formats and delivery mechanisms. This leads to a conundrum - we understand that data is capable of many types of outputs, and we must allow it to serve as many uses as possible while keeping costs to a minimum.

This week the Federal CIO released a strategy for ‘Digital Government’ [5] which challenges us to innovate to meet these growing demands. The strategy contains four themes: information-centric, shared platform, customer-centric, and security. This broad approach to information technologies provides the innovative foundation for the entire strategy. Key to this approach is making our data more open by decoupling it from any predefined presentation layer; in short, publishing data as simple services which anyone can access. The strategy calls for using APIs as a cornerstone to this decoupling.

Announcing the FCC .Gov Developer Meet-Up [6]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

March 20, 2012

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Today, we would like to announce the FCC’s .Gov Developer Meet-Up, a follow up to our very successful developer day last year. The .Gov Developer Meet-up will introduce federal agencies with developer resources on their own hosted websites to the open developer community. The FCC will host the .Gov Developer Meet-Up on April 16, 2012 from 11:00AM- 3:00 PM in the FCC Commission Meeting Room. This event promotes open government and is not to be missed.

The .Gov Developer Meet-Up is designed to expose the developer community to majority of the .Gov and developer resources currently in production. The event will also give .Gov producers the opportunity to showcase their resources to the open developer community. This is a ‘meet-up’ not a traditional code sprint. We want to foster the developer community and interaction with FCC and other .govs. Collectively we will learn what challenges and opportunities developers in other .govs face. We’ll also learn more about how developers are interacting with .gov resources.

Each of the 25 federal agencies with developer pages have been invited to give short ignite style sessions on their published application programming interfaces (APIs) or developer resources. The .Gov Meet-Up will be a series of 7-10 minute ‘ignite’ talks, in which developers participate by asking questions and interacting with the core producers and the whole .gov/developer community, followed by an open gathering & discussion. The meet-up will conclude with general session where developers can interact with the principals for each of these agencies, write code against these APIs, or present their use cases so government can understand how their assets are being consumed from the outside.

Data the Way You Want It – New GIS Data Formats for Mobility Fund Phase I [7]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

March 8, 2012

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Today the FCC is taking another step in our approach towards open government. We are releasing additional formats of high-need data to make it easier to use for individual analysis. The data we are releasing is for the potentially eligible areas for the Mobility Fund Phase I of the Connect America Fund [8]. We first published this data as files for use with spreadsheet and database software [9] and as interactive map [10] with the release of a public notice [11]. While the map is very useful, and the data files thorough, we heard from some constituents who asked for additional help in accessing this data.

To answer that call, we have packaged the data in three ways for you to use, making the data more accessible to everyone. Now, in addition to the published map, the data behind the map is open for analysis by geographers, developers and analysts alike.We choose three of the most accessible data formats for geography to publish: shapfile, WMS, and Mapping Tiles. These formats are either industry standards, are established open standards or are extraordinarily fast approaches to analyzing and displaying the data.

One of the ways we are providing the data as a shapefile [12] for download. The shapefile format is actually four individual files (.dbf, .shp, .shx, and .prj) all with the same prefix. This format is generally recognized as a standard transfer file for geographic information systems data. The shapefile is accepted transfer in just about every GIS software package.

Understanding Maps at the Federal Communications Commission [13]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

February 3, 2012

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Last October, the FCC quietly deployed a new section to fcc.gov. The section, http://www.fcc.gov/maps [14], translates complex policy into understandable stories for consumers. Our maps are a fresh approach to internet mapping and help to advance our goal of open government. Here’s a little insight to the why and how are doing this...

At the FCC we rely on data to manage and understand complex issues. We have extensive enterprise data and lengthy legal descriptions of each of their current landscapes, changes in regulations, and effect of these changes. In many cases, our data on any one of these topics contains millions of records of database licenses or regulatory actions. Descriptions of our actions are primarily available through public notices, rule makings and formal orders.

We are always working to ensure that all consumers are able to understand our work to unleash the opportunities of broadband for all Americans. That’s where good mapping can make a big difference.

What is "place" and why does it matter? [15]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

May 20, 2011

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Today, I spoke at a forum on Place-Based Public Management [16] sponsored by the National Academy of Public Administration. The purpose of the forum was to explore how place-based policies might improve public management.

New Market Opportunities and FCC Building Blocks [17]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

March 23, 2011

158 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.

First 24 hours [18]

by Michael Byrne, Geospatial Information Officer

February 18, 2011

158 The launch of the National Broadband Map marks the beginning of a promising new venture: empowering consumers, researchers, policy-makers, and developers to truly understand what broadband means in America.

This idea—a powerful way to navigate huge troves of data to increase transparency and understanding—drove the production of the map. In building the map, our team had a hunch that there would be a hunger for a tool that served up this level of detail and information. The talented designers, web architects, and geospatial pros kept that in mind throughout the entire building process.

When the map went live yesterday, the response was astounding, with the number of requests to the website averaging more than 1,000 per second! Below is just a short list of the metrics we observed on our first day;

Total hits yesterday: 158,123,884
Hits served by cache: 141,068,348 (89.21%)
Total Bytes Transferred: 863GB
Peak Requests per Second: 8,970
Average Requests per Second: 1,095
Visits in the first 10 hours: over 500,000

This phenomenal response shows that the investment of time, energy, and—not least of all—Congressional funds were well worth it. The National Broadband Map clearly has a market of interest, and we’re extremely proud to see that market being well served.

IssueMap Round-up [19]

by Michael Byrne, Geographic Information Officer

February 16, 2011

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We’re really proud and humbled by the splash that IssueMap [20] made last week. Thanks to the team at FortiusOne for rolling out a high-quality product that obviously hit the mark.

It’s exciting to see some of the cool IssueMaps that are shared over social networks. You can follow @IssueMap [21] on Twitter to catch the shared IssueMaps published there. We’ve also put up a new Reboot page that collects a few FCC data sets and maps them on IssueMap [22].

We continue to hold strong to the belief that -- done right -- mapping will significantly change the way we understand data, solve problems, and tell compelling stories.

Here are some of the different angles on IssueMap: