Investigative Essay Science - Claudio Hirujo

Places in the Dominican Republic that don't have Internet Access
According to Cambridge Dictionary, internet access is the ability to connect to the

internet. When we talk about the geographic aspect of internet access, we talk about the
availability of this ability, which is provided by telecommunication towers (cell towers),
satellites, broadband using copper wires or fiber optics, and/or normal telephone circuits.
Infrastructural projects that involve the building of, for example, cell towers are focused on
providing internet access to communities that previously didn't have this commodity.
A very reliable way of knowing which areas in our country do not have available
internet access is by looking at the coverage map of any telecommunications company that
operates in the Dominican Republic.
This is the 3G coverage map of Altice (Orange) by 2018.

This is the entire coverage of Claro by July 2017.
On this map Claro claims to cover 99% of the Dominican Republic population. On the
year 2015, Altice (Orange) claimed to cover 95% of the population. We may assume that by
this year the percentage is higher considering that Altice (Orange) has better coverage than
Claro since the beginning. On both maps we can effortlessly see how the sparsely populated
and uninhabited areas such as national parks and mountain range areas are not covered. Let's
take a closer look:
If you zoom in on the areas that are not covered by the Altice network you can see
how there are no communities in almost all of them and/or are national parks.
More examples of these:
There are also some populated areas in which one company doesn't have coverage but
the other does. For example:
According to the Altice map, this community doesn't have internet access. If we look
at the Claro map we can see that it is covered.
If the colored part of the Altice coverage map is 100% accurate, then the small
agricultural community of El Papayo isn't covered:
It would be extremely cost-inefficient to build a cell tower just to connect this
community of less than 20 houses with 3G mobile internet access, since a common GSM cell
tower has a range of about 35km and El Papayo is about 1.5km from the nearest covered
area.
Another example of this is Cabeza de Toro, Bahoruco:

During the second half of the 90s, the Dominican Republic experienced many reforms
in many sectors in order to comply with Leonel's "State modernization strategy". The
Information and Communications Technology sector was no exception, its liberalization led
to tremendous growth. An increase in direct foreign investment and market competition
caused a reduction in prices and an increase in service quality. As a result, the Dominican
Republic enjoyed one of the most advanced ICT systems and infrastructure in the region for
the next 20 years. Although the majority of the population lives within reach of fibre, the
concentration of fibre along just a few routes means that a significant portion of Dominican
territory does not have fibre connectivity, since most of the people live in the urban cities of
Santo Domingo and Santiago. Extensive 3G coverage provides broadband access in those
areas without fibre. The USF/INDOTEL’s Rural Broadband Network Project in 2007
incentivized the deployment of 3G mobile phone services in 506 locations that were not
previously covered by commercial telecommunication companies.
As a result, by 2010 3G became accessible to over 90% of the population and
nowadays over 99% of the population has access to 3G. A case study by the Alliance for
Affordable Internet shows that most Dominicans access the Internet and Broadband services
using mobile devices, therefore, 3G coverage maps should be the most important sources to
study the availability of internet access in the Dominican Republic.
In conclusion, over 99% of the population of the Dominican Republic has access to
the internet and it would be very cost-inefficient to build cell towers to connect a handful of
tiny, agricultural communities that are not covered because of geographical and economic
reasons.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/internet-access
http://altice.com.do/personal/movil/mapa-de-cobertura
http://aplicaciones.claro.com.do/cobertura/Mapa/Mapa_cobertura_hype.html
http://1e8q3q16vyc81g8l3h3md6q5f5e.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/03/Case-Study-Dominican-Republic.pdf
https://indotel.gob.do/media/7119/res028-08.pdf
The Bubble Barrier and Fish
The Great Bubble Barrier revolves around the concept of placing a tube
diagonally across a river and pumping air through it. The upward-motion that the
bubbles create will impede plastics from reaching our oceans. The creators behind this
award-winning idea claim that fish and ships will pass the air screen unhindered. How
can we prove that fish will indeed pass through the barrier unimpeded? By analyzing
the physics of fish locomotion and the interaction between fish and bubbles.
This is a scale model of the Great Bubble Barrier.
There is a lot of action going on beneath the surface of rivers. Objects such as
branches, rocks, bubbles, and moving fish produce small whirlpools or vortices as
continuous water current passes by. James Liao of Harvard University and his team
explain how fish can swim through all of this turbulence. They argue that a fish's body
can be seen as some type of "foil," when a stream of water or air moves around it, it
propels the fish forward.
The difference between a foil and a fish's body when it comes to movement is
that a foil gains more energy by intercepting the vortex directly while fish prevent
exhausting themselves by curving their bodies either way like a flag and slalom or
zig-zag through the vortices while using them as propulsion.
This graphic can show how fish zig-zag through vertices in order to propel
themselves.
On September 9, 1986 David R. Sager and Charles H. Hocutt from the

University of Maryland published a study titled "Estuarine Fish Responses to Strobe
Light, Bubble Curtains and Strobe Light/Bubble-Curtain Combinations as Influenced
by Water Flow Rate and Flash Frequencies." In this study, three species of estuarine
fish were used to test the effects of strobe light and bubble curtains on their behavior.
The results indicated that of the three species, only one showed avoidance of the
bubble barrier if the space wasn't adjusted. One of these species even showed
affection towards the bubble barrier.
Evidence indicates that air-screen bubbles don't negatively affect most types of
fish. Also, the physics of fish locomotion strongly suggests that many types of fish
such as the trout can use bubbles as propulsion to move up and down a river. In any
case, the Great Bubble Barrier can be modified to accommodate any type fish that
avoids the air-screen, it can make some space between the bottom of the river and the
diagonal tube in order to let those fish get through or it can also adjust the space
between each vertical bubble line.
http://thegreatbubblebarrier.com/en/
https://publishing.aip.org/publishing/journal-highlights/physics-swimming-fish
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3607002/ns/technology_and_science-
science/t/tao-fish-swimming/
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8b6e/687462688d133b8ddf0320b55f0d9aeaff
04.pdf
Claudio Hirujo

Investigative Essay Science - Claudio Hirujo

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Places in the Dominican Republic that don't have Internet Access

According to Cambridge Dictionary, internet access is the ability to connect to the

This is the 3G coverage map of Altice (Orange) by 2018.

Another example of this is Cabeza de Toro, Bahoruco:

This is a scale model of the Great Bubble Barrier.

On September 9, 1986 David R. Sager and Charles H. Hocutt from the

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