FCC’s Android App Available; Commissioners, Users Enthusiastic
The FCC’s new smartphone app got its moment in the spotlight Thursday, as members of the agency’s Office of Engineering and Technology demoed for new Chairman Tom Wheeler and the rest of the commissioners the app, which will use crowdsourcing to determine mobile broadband speeds, latency and jitter. After several months of internal testing, the app is available for Android in the Google Play store. Commissioners were enthusiastic about it, even though some lamented they won’t be able to use the app on their iPhones.
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Android commands a majority of the smartphone market, but Apple commands a majority of FCC commissioners. Commissioner Mignon Clyburn said she looked forward to seeing a similar app for iPhones. Commissioner Ajit Pai said he’s eagerly awaiting the iOS app to see how his mobile experience compares. Wheeler carries an iPhone, as does Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel.
Coding is complete on the iOS version, OET officials said, but the Apple operating system is more limited in what it lets the app do. Apple users will have to launch their speed tests manually, versus the automatic tests that will run in the background for Android users. The manual test data in itself will be interesting, said Chief Technology Officer Henning Schulzrinne, putting a positive spin on the iOS limitation: It will enlighten researchers on the way manual tests can skew data compared to automatic tests, he said.
The app has a nearly five-star rating on the Google Play store (http://bit.ly/1ct8MuG). At our deadline, the app was scoring an average of 4.7 stars over 26 reviews. Users praised the detail of measurement, the lack of ads, and the “initiative” shown by a government agency. “Nice to see something useful from the US government, lol,” read one review. Other reviewers said they looked forward to submitting their results to show “how CRAPPY” Sprint’s network is, or to prove how “T-Mobile is stealing my money,” delivering mere kilobits when megabits were promised: “I've always known about my horrible speeds but now the FCC does too."
In January, the commission will release an interactive map to provide an initial view of the collected data, said Eric Spry, deputy geographic information officer at the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. “Over time” they will release additional tools to allow comparisons at the local level. Spry showed a chart with potential visualizations -- six-sided cells in varying shades of green to show test results.
"We stress that the data collection is anonymous,” and no personally identifiable information will be collected, said Walter Johnston, chief of the Electromagnetic Compatibility Division of OET. Johnston and his team worked with a diverse group of privacy experts from the federal government, academia, and industry, he said. Some privacy advocates told us in October they were worried the data collected could be tracked to individual users (CD Oct 11 p6). But Johnston assured the commissioners that before the release of any data, a “technical privacy expert” would analyze the data’s statistical properties to assure anonymity and prevent any identification.
The commissioners were generally excited about the app. Rosenworcel said the app would “help shine a light” on actual speeds and empower consumers. Pai called the app a “promising tool” and said he was glad the engineering team worked with privacy experts to ensure anonymity of data.
Only Republican Commissioner Michael O'Rielly expressed some reservation, saying he was curious about the $500,000 cost to the FCC to measure speeds on the fixed and mobile side. “I wonder if there isn’t a way to switch this to a Prize X-type scenario, where we challenge some outside folks” to participate in a contest, possibly dropping the cost down to “free in some instances,” O'Rielly said after the presentation. There are some “really smart young folks out there” who might be eager to build creative applications to get the job done, he said.
Wheeler said the presentation reminded him of his days as a venture capitalist. Perhaps consistent with that background, Wheeler laid out the quarterly “agenda of improvements” he hopes the team will meet: Q1 2014 would see the data mapped out, Q2 would bring a higher resolution of data and Q3 would see the “continued granularity that comes out of an expansion of the number of users,” allowing for more graphical representation of that, he said.
"I guess we would call this a public beta,” Wheeler said. “It’s always going to be improving, right?” To that, Johnston and Miller nodded vigorously in unison.