By: John Dombzalski
Today, the FCC launched a new National Broadband Map, allowing Americans to inspect broadband provider availability in every county, city, and even neighborhood across the U.S.
For this map, the FCC needed to display a massive amount of data on broadband availability and broadband speeds across the US, down to the neighborhood level. It needed to be interactive, so that Americans can understand what broadband coverage is available to them, and where there are still areas of no broadband options that the FCC needs to address.
As Commissioner Roscenworcel said after seeing the map at the February FCC Open Meeting,
“To have a fair shot at success, you need access to broadband […] So today we start with a map. This is important because the old adage is true, you cannot manage problems that you do not measure. With this tool, we can identify where service is and is not, where facilities are being built and where they are lacking. And how communities are connected and how they are at risk of falling behind. In other words, we have a blueprint for action that will provide everyone from consumers to policymakers with more information.”
The map displays an FCC dataset with over 68 million records, across 11 million blocks, with 441 different broadband providers — this makes for nearly 5 billion vector combinations. Once a user adds in their address, they can see the broadband providers available for their home along with provider tech and speeds. Users can interact with the map at all levels, starting from visualizing coverage in their neighborhood or block and drilling all the way up to nationwide view.
With our tools, the FCC can embed this 5 billion vector combination dataset into a map offering high rendering performance at every zoom level. The Tippecanoe vector tile generation tool subdivides the data spatially, merges blocks that have the same broadband networks available, and makes other geometric simplifications to represent the data as compactly as possible. In the user’s web browser, GL JS dynamically scales and styles this tiled data, ensuring seamless interaction with the map.
If you’re a developer needing to visualize enormous data, or even 5 billion-combination datasets, Mapbox’s data visualization tools can help you bin and render this data at scale. Contact us for help, or check out our guides to get started with Tippecanoe and adding map interactivity with GL JS.
Visualizing broadband coverage in every American neighborhood was originally published in Points of interest on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.