Quantifying Mobile Broadband Disparity :Application in Egyptian Context /Amr Mohamed Elsayed Abdel Kader Hashem

Supervisor:
Tarek Khalil

Thesis (PH.D)—Nile University, Egypt, 2024 .

"Includes bibliographical references"

Contents:
CERTIFICATION OF APPROVAL .....................................................................................................I
COPYRIGHT.........................................................................................................................................II
DEDICATION ......................................................................................................................................III
ACKNOWLEDGMENT ......................................................................................................................IV
DECLARATION ................................................................................................................................... V
ABSTRACT...........................................................................................................................................VI
CONTENTS ........................................................................................................................................ VII
LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................................... X
LIST OF TABLES.............................................................................................................................. XII
LIST OF EQUATIONS.....................................................................................................................XIII
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ...........................................................................................................XIV
1. INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 DIGITAL INEQUALITY IN EGYPT.............................................................................................. 5
1.2 RESEARCH CONTEXT .............................................................................................................. 8
1.3 STRUCTURE OF THE DISSERTATION ........................................................................................ 9
2. MOBILE BROADBAND EQUITY ........................................................................................... 11
2.1 MOBILE BROADBAND MARKET IN EGYPT............................................................................. 11
2.1.1 Diffusion of MBB technologies in Egypt......................................................................... 12
2.1.2 Digital Equity in Rural Egypt ......................................................................................... 15
2.1.3 MBB equity obligations on Mobile Network Operators.................................................. 17
2.1.4 Universal Service Fund................................................................................................... 20
2.1.5 Haya Karima................................................................................................................... 22
2.2 ANALYZING MBB EQUITY IN THE CONTEXT OF TECHNOLOGY ACTIVATION THEORY.......... 24
2.2.1 REST Model .................................................................................................................... 24
2.2.2 Utilizing REST model for analysis of MBB in Rural Egypt............................................. 26
2.2.3 Measuring Digital Equity................................................................................................ 26
2.3 MEASURING MBB................................................................................................................ 28
2.3.1 Structured Tests for MBB Measurement ......................................................................... 28
2.3.2 Crowd-sourced MBB Measurements .............................................................................. 29
2.3.3 Sources of Crowdsourced Data for Network Measurements .......................................... 32
2.3.4 Academic research utilizing Crowdsourced data ........................................................... 34
2.3.5 Considerations for using Crowd-sourced Analytics ....................................................... 42
2.4 NIGHT-TIME LIGHT APPLICATIONS....................................................................................... 45
2.4.1 NTL utilization for Economic Analysis ........................................................................... 46
2.4.2 Economic studies using NTL studies in Egypt ................................................................ 47
2.5 TOWARDS QUANTIFYING DIGITAL EQUITY ACROSS EGYPT .................................................. 48
2.5.1 Acquiring data for calculating the MBB gap .................................................................. 49
2.5.2 Studying the correlation between MBB and income variance ........................................ 50
viii
3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY............................................................................................... 51
3.1 RESEARCH PROBLEMS .......................................................................................................... 51
3.2 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ......................................................................................................... 51
3.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES........................................................................................................ 52
3.3.1 Validate crowd-sourced data reliability ......................................................................... 52
3.3.2 Study the gap in MBB infrastructure in Egypt ................................................................ 52
3.3.3 Develop tools for analyzing MBB diffusion .................................................................... 52
3.4 RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE..................................................................................................... 52
3.4.1 Support to Industry: ........................................................................................................ 52
3.4.2 Academic Contribution:.................................................................................................. 53
3.5 RESEARCH METHOD ............................................................................................................ 53
3.5.1 Section 1 (objective 3.3.1): ............................................................................................. 54
3.5.2 Section 2 (objective 3.3.2)............................................................................................... 55
3.5.3 Section 3 (objective 3.1.3)............................................................................................... 57
3.5.4 Summary of Research Method:....................................................................................... 58
3.6 DATA COLLECTION .............................................................................................................. 59
3.6.1 Selection of CSD source.................................................................................................. 59
3.6.2 Limitations of crowd-sourced data ................................................................................. 59
3.6.3 NTRA MBB QoS Tests Data............................................................................................ 60
3.6.4 Egypt Economic and Geographical Data ....................................................................... 60
3.6.5 NTL Data ........................................................................................................................ 60
3.7 DATA ANALYSIS:.................................................................................................................. 61
3.7.1 Tools: .............................................................................................................................. 61
3.7.2 Procedure: ...................................................................................................................... 62
3.7.3 Advantages of proposed Methodology ............................................................................ 62
3.7.4 Limitations of proposed Methodology ............................................................................ 62
4. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION................................................................................................ 65
4.1 SECTION 1 ............................................................................................................................ 65
4.1.1 Selection of Crowd-Sourced Data Set............................................................................. 65
4.1.2 Comparing Structured vs. Crowd-sourced Tests Results................................................ 67
4.1.3 Summary of Section 1...................................................................................................... 72
4.2 SECTION 2 ............................................................................................................................ 73
4.2.1 Urban-Rural Broadband Gap......................................................................................... 73
4.2.2 Beyond NTRA tests.......................................................................................................... 76
4.2.3 Broadband Equity in Egypt............................................................................................. 79
4.2.4 Summary of Section 2...................................................................................................... 80
4.3 SECTION 3 ............................................................................................................................ 82
4.3.1 utilizing NTL to analyze economic performance............................................................. 82
4.3.2 Download Speed vs NTL................................................................................................. 84
4.3.3 Summary of Section 3...................................................................................................... 89
ix
5. CONCLUSION & RECOMMENDATIONS............................................................................ 91
5.1 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................................ 91
5.2 IMPLICATIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE STUDY ......................................................... 93
5.2.1 For Policymakers: .......................................................................................................... 94
5.2.2 For Telecom Operators: ................................................................................................. 94
5.2.3 For Developmental and Non-Government Organizations:............................................. 95
5.2.4 For Academia: ................................................................................................................ 95
5.3 FUTURE RESEARCH .............................................................................................................. 96
REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................................... 99
APPENDICES..................................................................................................................................... 111
A.1.COMPARISON BETWEEN CSD SOURCES .......................................................................... 112
A.2. PROCESSING OOKLA DATA................................................................................................. 116
A.3. PROCESSING NTRA TESTS MAP......................................................................................... 120
A.4. BUILDING THE URBAN-RURAL LAND MODEL FOR EGYPT...................................... 123
A.5. PUBLICATION 1 ....................................................................................................................... 124
A.6. PUBLICATION 2 ....................................................................................................................... 126

Abstract:
With the advancement in mobile broadband technologies, geographical coverage is no longer
enough to assure that people have the necessary infrastructure to enable them to reap the full
benefits of digital transformation. Quality of access and more importantly its equity among
citizens in urban and rural areas becomes a critical factor to monitor. This study aims to
quantify the gap between urban and rural areas in Egypt using publicly available data and
investigate the impact of variance in wealth on broadband quality on sub-regional level as
suggested by Technology Activation Theory. The study starts by comparing results of
structured mobile broadband networks tests conducted by Egyptian Telecom Regulator
following European Telecom Standard Institute (ETSI) standard with crowdsourced tests
conducted by Egyptian users through Ookla Speedtest platform over the period 2020-2021.
The study proves a strong correlation of 70-80% between download speed tests results of
structured testing and crowdsourced data, which implies that results of crowdsourced
download speed tests could provide a fair representation of mobile broadband network
quality. The crowdsourced download data is then amended by population and geographic
data to study the gap in broadband quality between urban and rural areas in Egypt. The study
finds the gap to be varying around 50% throughout 2020-2021 in Egypt. The study constructs
a curve for population access to mobile broadband speeds under the name of Effective Mobile
Reach (EMR) curve and calculates a Mobile Broadband Inequity Coefficient (MBBIC) for
Egypt to increase from 64.19% in Q1, 2020 to 65.25% in Q4,2021 indicating a deterioration
in broadband equity between urban and rural areas. The study found very little correlation
between variance in network quality with variance in Night-time light captured by remote
sensing satellites, which was found to provide results for variance in income in Egypt close
to results obtained for GINI coefficient, a globally accepted indicator of wealth distribution.
Using MBBIC provides a clear metric for measurement of broadband equity within and
between nations which improves the global efforts for human development, especially within
the framework of United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. It also directs
government policies for assessment of readiness of the general public for accessing digital
social services.
Keywords
Digital Equity, crowdsourced data, technology activation, night time light, broadband
mobile networks, Egypt

Text in English, abstracts in English and Arabic