Chinaxe2x80x99s prefectural digital divide: Spatial analysis and multivariate determinants of ICT diffusion Abstract   Much research has made efforts to elaborate upon different dimensions to the digital divide, including informational and communications technology (ICT) access, ICT usage, and ICT outcomes. We assess the utility of such perspectives for studying digital inequality across prefectural cities in China. China is the worldu0027s largest ICT market in terms of the number of mobile devices in use, internet users, and broadband subscriptions, yet it has notable digital inequality within and between provinces, prefectural cities, and counties. In this study, we built a conceptual framework of digital divides for prefectural cities in China, examined spatial agglomeration using cluster analysis, and explored the leading correlates using a geographicallyweighted regression (GWR) model. A large digital divide among the prefectural cities in China was revealed, with cities with a high administrative level having a relatively high digital development index(DDI) score. Prefectural cities with high DDI levels are mainly agglomerated in large metropolitan areas, such as Beijingxe2x80x93Tianjinxe2x80x93Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the West Coast Economic Zone of the Taiwan Straits. Prefectural cities with low DDI levels are concentrated in the ruralmountainous regions in southwest China and povertystricken areas in central and western China. This study also found that the leading determinants of the digital divide are urban residential income, the secondary education gross enrollment ratio, rural residential income, and the working age population ratio, which indicates that socioeconomic problems, rather than institution and innovation aspects, have to be solved for improving ICT use and outcomes.

Urban Vibes and Rural Charms: Analysis of Geographic Diversity in Mobile Service Usage at National Scale We investigate spatial patterns in mobile service consumption that emerge at national scale. Our investigation focuses on a representative case study, i.e., France, where we find that: (i) the demand for popular mobile services is fairly uniform across the whole country, and only a reduced set of peculiar services (mainly operating system updates and longlived video streaming) yields geographic diversity; (ii) even for such distinguishing services, the spatial heterogeneity of demands is limited, and a small set of consumption behaviors is sufficient to characterize most of the mobile service usage across the country; (iii) the spatial distribution of these behaviors correlates well with the urbanization level, ultimately suggesting that the adoption of geographicallydiverse mobile applications is linked to a dichotomy of cities and rural areas. We derive our results through the analysis of substantial measurement data collected by a major mobile network operator, leveraging an approach rooted in information theory that can be readily applied to other scenarios.