Economics and Technology, Inc. -- Views and News, October 2010

October 2010

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FCC Announces Developer Application Programming Interface (API) for Data Access

On September 7, the FCC launched a new website: http://reboot.fcc.gov/developer. The website promises "Data Transparency" and states that "[t]he FCC actively promotes the innovative application of agency data in the public and private sectors. FCC.gov/Developer connects citizen developers with the tools they need to unlock government data." We couldn't be more excited about the prospect of easy access to useful FCC data. But while the FCC data interface seems like a positive step in this direction, its ultimate success in achieving the stated goal will require that the Commission continue to include additional data sets in the repository, and more importantly that it renew its commitment to data collection...

A quick review of the FCC developer API page reveals that very little actual data is currently being provided through the new interface. Only four data sets are available: (1) Consumer Broadband Tests, (2) FCC Census Block Conversions, (3) FCC broadband company registration numbers, and (4) Spectrum License View. In many respects, these aren't even separate resources, inasmuch as the first three are all interrelated to the Congressionally mandated broadband data collection initiative.

The FCC already collects a wealth of other data that has yet to make its way to the new website. The Wireline Competition Bureau Statistical Reports (available online at http://www.fcc.gov/wcb/iatd/stats.html) is just one compilation of data that could be made more accessible through a developer API. The FCC has over ten years of Form 477 local telephone competition and broadband reporting data, yet has fallen woefully behind in publishing even its annual summary reports of these data series. The Commission also maintains a mountain of data on the wireless industry, which it similarly summarizes in an annual CMRS Report to Congress. Including the source data underlying these reports to the data to be made available through the new API would make the new website vastly more useful.

A large concern not addressed by the re-release of already-public data via this new interface is the Commission's declining commitment to collect useful data in the first place. One of the largest collections of FCC telecom industry data resides in its Automated Reporting Management Information System ("ARMIS") database. Not only is this data not accessible through the new developer API, the FCC has actually eliminated the requirement that major wireline companies continue to submit any ARMIS data at all. ARMIS data has long been used to verify the reasonableness of ILEC rate levels overall and for specific categories of service, to identify the presence of possible cross-subsidization, and to inform the FCC's decision making process on key regulatory initiatives. Once the richest source of public data about the inner workings of telephone companies, and one of the only tools to monitor service-category-level detail, ARMIS has been relegated to the realm of regulatory archeology – not because of the manner in which the data is made available, but because the FCC decided (at the behest of major telecommunications providers) to stop collecting any ARMIS data at all.

Only by collecting and making available good and current data can the FCC "realize the ideal of the Gov 2.0 movement of government and private sector innovating together to solve our great policy challenges." We hope that the new FCC developer API signals a new momentum on the part of the FCC in its efforts to present and to collect useful industry data, and to use that data to inform its critical policy decisions.

Read the rest of Views and News, October 2010.

About ETI. Founded in 1972, Economics and Technology, Inc. is a leading research and consulting firm specializing in telecommunications regulation and policy, litigation support, taxation, service procurement, and negotiation. ETI serves a wide range of telecom industry stakeholders in the US and abroad, including telecommunications carriers, attorneys and their clients, consumer advocates, state and local governments, regulatory agencies, and large corporate, institutional and government purchasers of telecom services.