Carriers and phone manufacturers might be talking about nothing but 5G lately, but when it comes to the infrastructure that keeps most of us online, day-in and day-out, the US still very much runs on LTE. While such 4G coverage is fantastically strong in many places, that's still far from the case everywhere, and it hasn't always been easy to get straight answers from the carriers about exactly what kind of reception you can expect, and where. Thankfully, the FCC has just taken a big step towards fixing that, publishing its first standardized nationwide map of 4G coverage.

"Didn't the carriers already share this kind of info?" you might be wondering. Yes, but this new FCC effort takes a few extra steps to make that data a lot more useful. While the carriers themselves provided their coverage data to the FCC, the agency is the one who decided how that info is being presented. In this case, anywhere it shows the presence of LTE data, that means users can expect at least 5Mbps down and 1Mbps up. This prevents the networks from inflating their coverage maps by including areas where only slower speeds are possible.

In additional to the LTE layers, the FCC map also lets you see where phone service is available, including text messaging. You also get the benefit of being able to directly compare coverage between the big carriers, giving you an easy way to see just who's got the best network in your neck of the woods (* to be fair, coverage in the woods tends to be ... not great).

While this is already a really cool tool to play with, the FCC's Acting Chairwoman promises that there's more to come. Maybe a 5G map? Maybe wired broadband speeds? Whatever's next, we can't wait to see it.