Allison Baker

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has said that bridging the digital divide is his highest priority. And now, we have a valuable tool that will aid in efforts to bridge the gap: a new interactive broadband map, which will help the public and policy-makers understand where there are gaps in delivering fixed broadband and much more. This new map is built on the latest data for fixed-broadband deployment, collected every six months by the FCC from providers on Form 477.

Maps and geospatial analysis have become increasingly important as they allow the Federal Communications Commission to display information to the public in an interactive visual format. The FCC’s maps have become useful tools for conveying data in conjunction with Commission reports and public notices. The FCC’s maps site serves as a centralized hub for data visualizations and is one of the most highly trafficked parts of the Commission’s website.

The modernized look-and-feel of the new FCC’s maps site improves the user experience and provides better visual displays. Creating more design consistency across the maps we publish is one area we identified for improvement. To ensure uniform formats are used in all of our materials, we developed geospatial visualization design standards to maintain a consistent user experience across our maps and geospatial applications. These efforts directly align with the Commission’s goals of improving the usability and performance of our Information Technology systems while also making it easier for the public to access data. Recently, we moved the back-end infrastructure off of the existing legacy hardware and into a cloud-hosted environment. As a result of moving the maps site to a cloud-based platform, we’re able to provide several key benefits, including increased system stability and improved security.

The new cloud-based maps site expands on the existing features of the previous maps site with some significant improvements, including:

• Enhanced display - Simplified page layout improves the usability of the site and the responsive design allows the site to adapt to various devices and screen resolutions.
• Improved usability - New filter and search capabilities allow you to quickly find relevant content and identify related maps.
• Greater reliability – Cloud-based platform provides greater reliability and improved security.
• Streamlined publishing - Maps are now integrated with the FCC.gov Content Management System to maintain a common look-and-feel and support rapid deployment of visualizations.
• Flexible inputs - Use of Open Geospatial Consortium standards enables the site to embed externally hosted content and easily adapt to new technologies.