Microtelcos and the Digital Divide in CA (Spring - 2020)
Description
The broadband access market is increasingly dominated by a few large ISPs. However, small and medium-size operators (“microtelcos”) are critical to connectivity in low-income and rural communities in CA, serving markets of little interest to large operators. The primary goal of this project is to combine broadband infrastructure deployment data from the CPUC (California Public Utilities Commission) and socioeconomic data from the Census Bureau to understand the characteristics of the communities served by microtelcos, and to analyze whether the presence of a microtelco operator contributes to higher levels of connectivity in the community. The main technical challenge is to combine spatial data found in CPUC files with census block level data provided by the Census Bureau. This is part of an ongoing research program called Connected Communities and Inclusive Growth (CCIG).
Advisors
Skills Required by the team
- GIS
- R
- Stata