Microtelcos and the Digital Divide in CA
Description
Asjad Asif Jah, Jonathan Gonzalez
Jan 2021 - May 2021
Participated in the DataFest Spring 2021 organized by Center for
Knowledge-Powered Interdisciplinary Data Science (CKIDS) (https://sites.usc.edu/ckids/),
which is an Interdisciplinary Campus-wide Research Unit, in collaboration with Graduates Rising
in Information and Data Science (GRIDS) (https://gridsusc.github.io/).
Worked on the project titled "Microtelcos and the Digital Divide in CA" and won the best
presentation award at the closing ceremony. A brief description of the project is given
below.
Project Description:
The COVID-19 pandemic has reinvigorated calls to close the digital divide in the US and
elsewhere. Without adequate Internet access, households are at a disadvantage in education,
jobs, health, and other key dimensions of wellbeing. While local broadband markets are
increasingly concentrated, there is also increased interest in exploring the role those small
local operators (“microtelcos”) can play in serving in low-income and rural communities. These
microtelcos range from small wireless cooperatives to mom-and-pop private ISPs to
municipal-backed operators. This project seeks to a) map and identify the characteristics of
communities where microtelcos are present in CA, and b) to examine whether microtelcos presence
affects broadband service quality and adoption by businesses and households in the community.
The project will use broadband deployment data collected by the CPUC (California Public
Utilities Commission) and socioeconomic data from the Census Bureau.