IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/itse25/331275.html

When defines where: how rural digital divide, customers' mobility and usage patterns have shaped mobile infrastructures

Author

Listed:
  • Herrero, Teresa
  • Navio-Marco, Julio
  • Bujidos-Casado, María
  • Mendieta-Aragón, Adrian

Abstract

Extending and upgrading communication networks in rural areas is particularly challenging, due to the difficulties to recover the substantial investments it requires. Scholar and policymakers have identified mobile infrastructures as the most viable solution for these regions, owing to their flexibility and lower deployment costs. Techno-economic assessments supporting these recommendations typically rely on bottom-up demand models, with population as the primary input variable. In contrast to this traditional approach, our study shifts the focus to other variables that are highly relevant for mobile service providers: the number of fixed wireless access (FWA) subscriptions, customers' mobility patterns, and the spatiotemporal dynamics of communication services usage. We analyzed voice and broadband traffic data from all sites operated by a Spanish mobile service provider across different time frames, alongside data on FWA subscriptions per site and the number of mobile visitors per municipality. We began with a descriptive analysis of available data, segmented by municipality size, which revealed the unique characteristics of communication services usage in rural areas. These insights informed the development of both linear and non-linear demand models aimed at identifying the most influential variables driving communications demand at the municipal level. The results underscore the crucial role of non-resident users and FWA services in shaping demand—and, by extension, in guiding infrastructure investment decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Herrero, Teresa & Navio-Marco, Julio & Bujidos-Casado, María & Mendieta-Aragón, Adrian, 2025. "When defines where: how rural digital divide, customers' mobility and usage patterns have shaped mobile infrastructures," 33rd European Regional ITS Conference, Edinburgh, 2025: Digital innovation and transformation in uncertain times 331275, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:itse25:331275
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/331275/1/ITS-E-2025-30.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rendon Schneir, Juan & Xiong, Yupeng, 2016. "A cost study of fixed broadband access networks for rural areas," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(8), pages 755-773.
    2. Oughton, Edward J. & Amaglobeli, David & Moszoro, Marian, 2023. "What would it cost to connect the unconnected? Estimating global universal broadband infrastructure investment," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10).
    3. Ovando, Catalina & Pérez, Jorge & Moral, Antolín, 2015. "LTE techno-economic assessment: The case of rural areas in Spain," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 269-283.
    4. Denzer, Manuel & Schank, Thorsten & Upward, Richard, 2021. "Does the internet increase the job finding rate? Evidence from a period of expansion in internet use," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    5. Sarfaraz, Ali & Hämmäinen, Heikki, 2019. "Radio Access Network Traffic Forecast Analysis for Mobile Network Operators in Anticipation of 5G," 30th European Regional ITS Conference, Helsinki 2019 205211, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    6. Marta C. González & César A. Hidalgo & Albert-László Barabási, 2009. "Understanding individual human mobility patterns," Nature, Nature, vol. 458(7235), pages 238-238, March.
    7. Laitsou, Eleni & Ioannou, Nikos & Katsianis, Dimitris, 2022. "5G Fixed Wireless Access for rural broadband," 31st European Regional ITS Conference, Gothenburg 2022: Reining in Digital Platforms? Challenging monopolies, promoting competition and developing regulatory regimes 265649, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    8. Laura Alessandretti & Ulf Aslak & Sune Lehmann, 2020. "The scales of human mobility," Nature, Nature, vol. 587(7834), pages 402-407, November.
    9. Yanhan Ji & Xiangdong Liu, 2023. "Importance Measurement Of The Influencing Factors Of Long-Term Nursing Status In Long-Term Nursing Insurance Based On Multiple Linear Regression, Random Forest And Xgboost Models," FRACTALS (fractals), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 31(06), pages 1-14.
    10. Ioannou, Nikos & Katsianis, Dimitris & Varoutas, Dimitris, 2020. "Comparative techno-economic evaluation of LTE fixed wireless access, FTTdp G.fast and FTTC VDSL network deployment for providing 30 Mbps broadband services in rural areas," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    11. Ferrandis, Jesús & Ramos, Sergio & Feijóo, Claudio, 2021. "An assessment of estimation models and investment gaps for the deployment of high-speed broadband networks in NUTS3 regions to meet the objectives of the European Gigabit Society," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(7).
    12. Koutroumpis, Pantelis, 2019. "The economic impact of broadband: Evidence from OECD countries," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    13. Van der Wee, Marlies & Verbrugge, Sofie & Sadowski, Bert & Driesse, Menno & Pickavet, Mario, 2015. "Identifying and quantifying the indirect benefits of broadband networks for e-government and e-business: A bottom-up approach," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 176-191.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lee, Hyeongjik & Jeong, Seonkoo & Lee, Kwanghee, 2023. "The South Korean case of deploying rural broadband via fiber networks by implementing universal service obligation and public-private partnership based project," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(3).
    2. Feijóo, Claudio & Ramos, Sergio & Armuña, Cristina & Arenal, Alberto & Gómez-Barroso, José-Luis, 2018. "A study on the deployment of high-speed broadband networks in NUTS3 regions within the framework of digital agenda for Europe," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 682-699.
    3. Ferrandis, Jesús & Ramos, Sergio & Feijóo, Claudio, 2021. "An assessment of estimation models and investment gaps for the deployment of high-speed broadband networks in NUTS3 regions to meet the objectives of the European Gigabit Society," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(7).
    4. Hoeschele, Thomas & Dietzel, Christoph & Kopp, Daniel & Fitzek, Frank H.P. & Reisslein, Martin, 2021. "Importance of Internet Exchange Point (IXP) infrastructure for 5G: Estimating the impact of 5G use cases," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(3).
    5. Manica, Luis & Damásio, Bruno & Mendonça, Sandro, 2024. "State aid for broadband network deployment: National and subnational governance mechanisms, 2003–2023," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(9).
    6. Lee, Hyeongjik & Jeong, Seonkoo & Lee, Kwanghee, 2020. "Developing the Method for Estimating the Costs of Providing Broadband Universal Service: Korean Case," ITS Conference, Online Event 2020 224865, International Telecommunications Society (ITS).
    7. Li, Ze-Tao & Nie, Wei-Peng & Cai, Shi-Min & Zhao, Zhi-Dan & Zhou, Tao, 2023. "Exploring the topological characteristics of urban trip networks based on taxi trajectory data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 609(C).
    8. Ioannou, Nikos & Katsianis, Dimitris & Varoutas, Dimitris, 2020. "Comparative techno-economic evaluation of LTE fixed wireless access, FTTdp G.fast and FTTC VDSL network deployment for providing 30 Mbps broadband services in rural areas," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    9. Lee, Hyeongjik & Jeong, Seonkoo & Lee, Kwanghee, 2021. "Estimating the deployment costs of broadband universal service via fiber networks in Korea," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(4).
    10. Chiha, Asma & Van der Wee, Marlies & Colle, Didier & Verbrugge, Sofie, 2020. "Techno-economic viability of integrating satellite communication in 4G networks to bridge the broadband digital divide," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    11. Chen, Long & Lu, Yi, 2025. "Investigating dual-directional collective human mobility patterns of place-level incoming and outgoing travel behaviors using big data," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    12. Xuesong Gao & Hui Wang & Lun Liu, 2021. "Profiling Residents’ Mobility with Grid-Aggregated Mobile Phone Trace Data Using Chengdu as the Case," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(24), pages 1-13, December.
    13. Uğurel, Ekin & Huang, Shuai & Chen, Cynthia, 2024. "Learning to generate synthetic human mobility data: A physics-regularized Gaussian process approach based on multiple kernel learning," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    14. Clodomir Santana & Federico Botta & Hugo Barbosa & Filippo Privitera & Ronaldo Menezes & Riccardo Di Clemente, 2023. "COVID-19 is linked to changes in the time–space dimension of human mobility," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(10), pages 1729-1739, October.
    15. Yang, Hu & Lv, Sirui & Guo, Bao & Dai, Jianjun & Wang, Pu, 2024. "Uncovering spatiotemporal human mobility patterns in urban agglomerations: A mobility field based approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 637(C).
    16. Gerli, Paolo & Whalley, Jason, 2021. "Fibre to the countryside: A comparison of public and community initiatives tackling the rural digital divide in the UK," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(10).
    17. Zhong, Zhihua & Zhang, Hongzeng & Ozaki, Jun’ichi & Zhou, Yang & Zhao, Xinjie & Dan, Daniel & Wang, Chaofan, 2025. "A comprehensive methodological review of human mobility simulation and modelling: Current trends, challenges, and future directions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 674(C).
    18. Xingye Tan & Bo Huang & Michael Batty & Weiyu Li & Qi Ryan Wang & Yulun Zhou & Peng Gong, 2025. "The spatiotemporal scaling laws of urban population dynamics," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 16(1), pages 1-14, December.
    19. Yunhan Du & Takaaki Aoki & Naoya Fujiwara, 2025. "A review of human mobility: Linking data, models, and real-world applications," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 8(4), pages 1-62, November.
    20. Li, Heyang & Zeng, An, 2022. "Improving recommendation by connecting user behavior in temporal and topological dimensions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 585(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:itse25:331275. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.itseurope.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.