Connecting the Unconnected -- Sentiment Analysis of Field Survey of Internet Connectivity in Emerging Economies

TL;DR

This paper analyzes a field survey in Kathmandu, Nepal, revealing that despite high internet coverage, users desire faster, more reliable, and secure internet, with overall positive sentiments but notable variances.

Contribution

It provides a sentiment analysis of internet users in an emerging economy, highlighting user aspirations and demographic correlations based on survey data.

Findings

High overall positive sentiment towards internet usage.

Users desire faster, reliable, and secure internet services.

No dominant component found in attribute correlations.

Abstract

Internet has significantly improved the quality of citizens across the world. Though the internet coverage is quite high, 40% of global population do not have access to broadband internet. This paper presents an analysis of a field survey of population in some areas of Kathmandu, Nepal, an emerging economy. This survey was triggered by intermittent severe congestion of internet in certain areas of the city. People from three different areas were asked about their present experience of internet usage, its impact on their lives and their aspirations for the future. Survey pointed to high speed, low cost, reliable and secure internet as a major aspiration of the respondents. Based on their inputs, this paper presents a sentiment analysis as well as demographic information. Keys insights from this analysis shows that overall sentiment to most queries are positive. The variances of positive sentiments are high whereas those for negative ones are low. Also, some correlations and clusters are observed among the attributes though no dominant component exists in the data.