Community-Level Access DividesZa’atari Refugee Camp

Carleen MaitlandCollege of IST

Co-Director Institute for Information PolicyPenn State

Humanitarian informatics• ICT use in refugee crises

– How do the displaced use mobile phones and the internet? • Youth mobile phone and internet use study

– What kinds of network environments do the displaced have access to and why?• Network infrastructure study

– How can ICTs be used to foster self-reliance?• Community asset mapping project

• Big Data and the ebola response– Can the reality match the hype? What are the uses?

Constraints? How do humanitarian organizations share and use data?

Socio-technical systems

• Unpack the black box of technology• Examining ‘socio’ at the organizational level• For humanitarian informatics that means…

– Understanding international humanitarian law and its implications for• Relationships between UN and host country governments• UN policies that shape service provision

• Organizational policies– Organizations as infrastructure providers– Data management policies

Network environments for the displaced

• Community-Level Physical Access Divides– What do we really know about coverage? – FCC and SamKnows crowd sourced coverage readings– As measurement improves, how will our understanding of

access divides?

• Network architectures are socio-technical systems– Mixed technologies – mobile, wifi, fixed– Carriers’ decisions– But who else?

• Universities, coffee shops, individuals

Research Questions

• What are the technical characteristics of the Za'atari camp's network infrastructure and what divides, if any, do they reveal?

• What and how do organizational policies and practices influence these divides?

• Taking into account both the technical and social / organizational findings, what are possible solutions?

Za’atari Syrian Refugee Camp• Established July 2012• Population: ~80,000

• Social Systems– Refugee community– Humanitarian service providers– Conflicts between them

• Network Infrastructure– Microwave network– Cellular network (Zain, Umniah, and Orange) – WiFi (Base camp and community centers)

Credit: New York Times

Team

Mixed Methods• Description of wifi and cellular network architectures• Technical signal measurements

– Quantifying the cellular coverage• Overall ability of the networks to serve individual users• Infrastructure from a geographic standpoint

– Cellular control messages and received signal strength indicator (RSSI)• Equipment: 1 laptop, 1 Nuand BladeRF software-defined radio and 4

android phones with radio debug model enabled for each person;• Non-intrusive and non-invasive.

• Observations, interviews and surveys conducted over 2 field sessions and numerous skype-based interactions

CellularNetwork congestion

Percent of immediate assignment rejections per five minutes observed in the carrier networks (Jan 6th 2015)

Cellular - Observed backoff wait valuesHow long a phone must wait until it repeats its request for a resource

Cellular - Timing advance Observed Distances between individual Phones and base Stations

CDF: cumulative distribution function of the calculated distance for each carrier

Umniah has the most long-distance users while Zain users experience the lowest distances

Geographic analysis

Received signal strength

Geographic analysis

Received signal strength

Geographic analysis

Cell reselection offset

CRO artificially increase the calculated signal strength when the phone determines which cell to use

Zain, the most popular carrier, makes extensive use of CRO with 87% of messages advertising a CRO of 20, resulting in an artificial increase of 40 dBm.

Android RSSI value to level map

Geographic analysis

Data Connectivity

Access divides

• Consumer oriented• Divides between

– Carriers– Space– Consumer groups

• Service quality-oriented• Measured by

– congestion– Uneven spatial

distribution in services– Inter-network access

Congestion divide

• Social factors– Booming economy – refugees can pay for service– Failure of camp management to provide fixed

network alternatives• Equity, financial – recurring costs, resisting permanency

– UNHCR’s SIM distribution plan with Zain• Recommendations

– Informed carrier choices– Change SIM distribution program

Uneven spatial distribution

• 3G connectivity most likely at base camp– Carrier network design decision?

• Signal strength – changing land use; as camp has grown, network not keeping up

• Recommendations– Work with carriers on spatial distribution of coverage – Repurpose abandoned facility in strong coverage area

Inter-network divide

• Lack of access to a fixed or wifi network for refugees– Not allowed on the UNHCR network

• Refugees’ lack of political power prohibits them from arranging their own private network– Temporary nature

• This divide exacerbates the congestion • Recommendation - intra camp network

Implications for theory

• Socio-technical systems– Opening the black box of technology– Understanding interactions of social and technical

systems• Modularity• Boundary object theory

• Multi-level governance– International, national and organizational levels of

policy making and their effects on ICT use

Za’atari – next steps

• New information management officer• Money is drying up – refugee self-reliance• Community asset mapping project

cmaitland@ist.psu.edu

http://cmaitland.ist.psu.edu