On Tuesday the FCC announced a new set of online tools to access FCC data. The tools include application programming interfaces (APIs), which allow citizen developers to repurpose data available in different ways.
"These tools are designed to maximize the value of government data for citizen shareholders," said Steven VanRoekel, FCC managing director. "Their release is part of a larger effort aimed at running a dot gov more like a dot com, with the same kind of agility, responsiveness, and innovation we expect from leading commercial websites."
While the tools released this week focus more on broadband than on other wireless or broadcast facilities, the "FCC License View API" may be handy for tracking licenses and renewal dates among different services. The "FCC Registration Number (FRN) Conversion API" has two calls. The first is GetList, which takes a state's abbreviation or FIPS code and a yes-or-no indicator for multiple states and returns a list of broadband providers in that state. The other, GetInfo, takes the FRN of a broadband provider and returns information about the provider.
I wasn't able to find the APIs on the FCC website during a quick search Wednesday night, but will include an update in a future RF Report when I locate them.
