Only in the sense that high population density makes minimal spanning trees very small indeed. The area simply is not relevant for wired coverage. Wireless links are another story, obviously, where antennas define a coverage area, but as long as the bits go through linear fibers, it simply does not matter how large someone's back yard is, or how far it extends from the front door. That area is irrelevant to the provision of service (unless someone lives on the other side of it).
The fastest data networks are wired, and even the wireless networks have linear backhaul.
By topology, a high-rise apartment building where everyone is within 100m of the utility closet on their floor is not all that different from a small town where most houses are within 100m of Main Street. The apartments have smaller area because people are stacked on top of each other. The total length of the cables and the equipment at the distribution nodes are still what matters.
You are removing a step in the causality chain. High population density causes efficient networks because all high-density areas incorporate their vertical space, by necessity. High-rise apartment and office buildings make it relatively easy to wire up a lot of people all at once.
But low population density does not necessarily imply a costly, inefficient network. The correlation between the two is stronger at the dense end of the scale. In the case where information about network topology is not available, population density may be used as a less accurate substitute, but your conclusions will likewise be less accurate, especially at the lower end of the scale.
Probably a closer approximation could be reached by looking at aerial photos of the places under comparison, adding up the total length of visible streets, and dividing population totals by that number, to get people per street-meter rather than people per square-meter.
The fastest data networks are wired, and even the wireless networks have linear backhaul.
By topology, a high-rise apartment building where everyone is within 100m of the utility closet on their floor is not all that different from a small town where most houses are within 100m of Main Street. The apartments have smaller area because people are stacked on top of each other. The total length of the cables and the equipment at the distribution nodes are still what matters.
You are removing a step in the causality chain. High population density causes efficient networks because all high-density areas incorporate their vertical space, by necessity. High-rise apartment and office buildings make it relatively easy to wire up a lot of people all at once.
But low population density does not necessarily imply a costly, inefficient network. The correlation between the two is stronger at the dense end of the scale. In the case where information about network topology is not available, population density may be used as a less accurate substitute, but your conclusions will likewise be less accurate, especially at the lower end of the scale.
Probably a closer approximation could be reached by looking at aerial photos of the places under comparison, adding up the total length of visible streets, and dividing population totals by that number, to get people per street-meter rather than people per square-meter.