How good is your broadband? The FCC needs to know.

[Commentary] The problem is that the Federal Communications Commission’s annual broadband report, by law, demands both a factual conclusion and a regulatory call to action. Depending on its findings, the agency is required to increase or decrease regulation. As a result, the temptation to slant the report’s findings to support a broader agenda has proven difficult to resist.

The FCC should create an interactive broadband dashboard, one that can be continually updated with the most current information on broadband technologies, speeds, performance and coverage. The dashboard should provide, to paraphrase the old Dragnet TV show, “just the facts.” No opinions about adequacy, timeliness, or what constitutes “reasonable.” The FCC could present the data it collects in ways that enable broadband stakeholders to improve their solutions to deployment issues. The FCC could do the country a huge favor by making sure it gets the facts right and letting stakeholders interpret their meaning — before the commission develops its own policy agenda.

[Larry Downes is project director at the Georgetown Center for Business and Public Policy. Blair Levin is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.]