“Insights from Implementation of Free Internet Program in Low-income Households Through Private LTE and Commercial 5G Networks”
by Aryo Yarahmadi, Alireza Ansaripour, and Omprakash Gnawali.
In GoodIT '25: Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good , September 2025.
Digital inclusion remains a critical challenge for low-income households, who often lack reliable and affordable access to the Internet. Although policymakers and service providers are paying more attention to connectivity solutions for low-income families, there is limited real-world evidence on how these solutions perform. Also, traditional survey-based analysis methods used by most programs and research often fall short of capturing shifts in user behavior due to their brief, isolated view of usage. Furthermore, surveys rely on qualitative self-reports from users, who may have varying perspectives and interpretations. In this work, we present the first large-scale, real-world deployment and evaluation of a private LTE network, using actual network data, as a solution for providing free Internet access in underserved urban areas. We also compare its potential with commercial 5G networks as alternative solutions for free connectivity. Our program provided Internet connectivity for over 3580 households using the private LTE network and 935 households using the commercial 5G network. We collected network usage data for one year, speed tests, and information about devices used by users for one month. By categorizing the users based on their download volume, we found that the lack of usage is not necessarily due to lower service quality. Low-income households also have the same traffic patterns as the general public. We also analyzed the types of devices commonly used by low-income households and how these findings can be used to shape digital inclusion programs.
Download Presentation Slides.BibTeX entry:
@inproceedings{lowincome-goodit25,
author = {Aryo Yarahmadi,Alireza Ansaripour and Omprakash Gnawali},
title = {Insights from Implementation of Free Internet Program in Low-income Households Through Private LTE and Commercial 5G Networks},
booktitle = {In GoodIT '25: Proceedings of the 2025 International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good},
month = Sept,
year = {2025}
}