Reach out and touch someone

September 10, 2011 9:13 PM

The Connected States of America: State lines if borders were formed by telephone calling habits.

Some additional analysis.

posted by Mitheral (5 comments total)

That split right down NJ seems pretty much perfect.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 9:19 PM on September 10, 2011

It seems that rural states get short shrift on mobile coverage. It almost echoes problems with accessibility of landlines in the early half of the 20th C.; FDR's Rural Electrification Administration was charged with bringing electricity and (somewhat later) telephone service to rural areas of the United States in the mid-30s and afterwards. In familiar-sounding language, co-ops had to emerge due to "unwillingness of power companies to serve farmsteads". It was as far along as 1949 until the REA began giving loans to telephone service co-ops.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:33 PM on September 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

Double
posted by strangely stunted trees at 9:35 PM on September 10, 2011

As someone who's both (a) worked for a telco and done some analysis of calling patterns at a local exchange level, and (b) currently (trying!) to do spatial analysis and comparisons between ecological populations, I find this quite fascinating.

But the truly fascinating bit for me is not only the differences, the but the similarities, between state & calling pattern boundaries. Knowing f-all about the demographics & historical linkages between states, I'd bet a lot of both is down to personal (i.e. family location) and commercial (i.e. nearest & next-nearest large service centre) connections, with a dollop of traditional telco company boundaries thrown in.

I'd look further into it, but I'd have to drop my lame attempts at analyzing pest distributions to go looking up state names and demographics…
posted by Pinback at 9:37 PM on September 10, 2011

I know it says "insufficient data", but it may as well say "HA HA, SUCKER, DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU WERE GOING TO BE ABLE TO USE YOUR CELL PHONE IN FUCKING WYOMING??!" Because: been there, failed to do that, got the majestic wolf t-shirt.
posted by phunniemee at 9:39 PM on September 10, 2011 [1 favorite]