Community-level access divides: A refugee camp case study

Despite the appearance of uniform availability of mobile services, in many locales granular network analyses reveal the persistence of physical access divides. It stands to reason these divides, similar to those at larger scales, are also reflections of community-level social and economic divides. In this research, we examine community-level physical access divides in the context of a Syrian refugee camp. The investigation combines detailed network and organizational analyses to characterize the divides and identify factors in- uencing their creation and potential solutions. Our findings show that even in the limited confines of a refugee camp, coverage patterns and bandwidth availability differ significantly both within and between the networks of three mobile cellular carriers. These patterns, together with the overall configuration of network infrastructure, demonstrate three community level divides: An inter-carrier congestion divide, a spatial distribution divide, and an inter-network divide. We identify a number of linkages between these divides and the social, organizational and humanitarian context of the camp. Building on these analyses, we provide recommendations to ameliorate these divides for both residents and camp management.