Today we again updated the National Broadband Map, the unprecedented interactive map that shows what high-speed Internet service is available in the United States. The map is powered by a new set of data from 1,865 broadband providers nationwide – more than 20 million records – and displays where broadband is available, the name of the provider, the technology used to provide the service, and the maximum advertised speeds of the service.
Since its launch last year, the National Broadband Map has attracted more than 650,000 users who are employing the map to meet a variety of needs. For example:
- The map is helping consumers and small businesses who are unaware of their broadband options. In Utah, for instance, a mid-sized company in the health care field was losing time and money due to frequent broadband outages at a rural office. The company considered moving these jobs to their headquarters in an urban location. However the company was able to use the National Broadband Map to identify other broadband providers in this rural county – and retain hundreds of jobs in this rural area.
- Businesses are using the map to identify and analyze potential employment locations. For instance, the Kansas Department of Commerce and a customer service company used the map to identify communities with the broadband necessary to support home-based workers. As a result, the customer service company hired about 200 workers in the state, providing much-needed jobs in small towns that may have otherwise been overlooked for this work. Similarly, an online training company used the map to identify South Dakota towns where they can locate new offices, which will support more than 100 professional jobs in these rural locations.
- The map has supported academic research at more than 1,000 colleges and universities and been used by more than 500 city and county governments. And developers are using the data from the map to create new applications. In the past nine months, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have been called more than 20 million times.
Of course, these are just a few examples. We would like to hear how you are using the map too.