Mapping the Geography of Cyberspace Using Telecommunications Infrastructure Information

Cyberspace refers to the virtual world that is wired by high-speed telecommunications networks connecting people, computers and places. In has been well recognized that cyberspace is quite different from the physical world in the sense that traditional concepts of geography, such as 'nearby', 'distance', and 'connectivity', no longer apply. The relationship between cyberspace and the physical space is an important one and there is a real need to understand, map and deconstruct the complex spatiality of cyberspace. There has been lack of empirical and theoretical work that could derive formal properties of cyberspace. The paper presents a layered framework within which different views of cyberspace are discussed. The framework not only allows opposing views of cyberspace geography to coexist, but also suggest new territories that deserve extensive research. Important spatial properties of each layer are identified, and approaches for deriving those properties are proposed. In particular, the paper suggests spatial models that can be applied to telecommunications infrastructure data in order to understand the geographical distribution of the critical variables such as network connectivity and access bandwidth. Applications of the model are suggested in defining virtual communities and in evaluating the spatial effectiveness of telecommunications infrastructure.