Appendix C: Description of New Mobile Data Technology Adoption Rankings
T
his appendix describes the construction of telecommunication sector indicators relating to the adoption of telecommunication technology, liberalization of the telecommunication sector, foreign participation in telecommunication operators, and independence of the regulatory authority. For further information on these indicators and their data sources, see Arezki et al. (2021, app. table 1); for information on basic descriptive statistics on the indicators, see Arezki et al. (2021, app. table 2).
Technology Adoption Indicator Arezki et al. (2021) construct an index of the pace of technology adoption by ranking each country on how quickly it adopts each telecommunication technology standard (1G through 5G). This is a balanced data set of rankings for 198 countries for 40 years since 1980, based on Telegeography’s Spectrum Launched Timeline, which lists the date at which each country has adopted a given standard. Regional indexes are derived as simple averages of the countries in the region. Figure C.1, which is also featured in chapter 7, shows the evolution of the ranking for the Middle East and North Africa and for
Sub-Saharan Africa. In contrast with North America, which jumped quickly to top rank and stayed there, some regions have progressed up the technology ladder much more slowly, and others have had swings in trajectory, like the Middle East and North Africa, which has declined in ranking since 2008. Sub-Saharan Africa’s ranking declined through 2006 but has since been improving (figure C.1). The indicators were constructed to reflect the relative speed or delay in technology adoption, as follows. At each point in time, countries were grouped based on the latest standard they have adopted. Group 1 includes countries that have adopted the most advanced standard. Group 2 includes countries that have adopted the secondnewest standard available to date, and so on for the other groups. Within each group, countries are ranked in the order they have adopted a given standard. Consider n countries at period t, of which x countries have launched 4G, while y countries have launched 3G. Then in this period, the x countries that have adopted 4G will rank from number 1 to x, with the country that first launched 4G being ranked first. The set of y countries only using 3G will rank from
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