Telephone density or teledensity is the number of

telephone A telephone is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be easily heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into e ...

connections for every hundred individuals living within an area. It varies widely across the nations and also between urban and rural areas within a country. Telephone density has significant correlation with the

per capita GDP Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is ofte ...

of the area. It is also used as an indicator of the

purchasing power Purchasing power is the amount of goods and services that can be purchased with a unit of currency. For example, if one had taken one unit of currency to a store in the 1950s, it would have been possible to buy a greater number of items than would ...

of the

middle class The middle class refers to a class of people in the middle of a social hierarchy, often defined by occupation, income, education, or social status. The term has historically been associated with modernity, capitalism and political debate. Commo ...

of the country or specific region.

Determining telephone density

In earlier days teledensity was computed as the number of

fixed telephone lines A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses wire, metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a cellular network, mobile cellula ...

per hundred inhabitants. But this method has become less significant with an increasing number of countries register a trend of

mobile cellular A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

subscribers outnumbering the fixed line connections. Hence, as an alternative, ''mobidensity'' or mobile cellular subscribers per hundred inhabitants was proposed. Since this method caused disadvantage to some countries where the fixed line network is well established, or others where the mobile network is still in its initial stage of development, ''effective teledensity'' has been proposed by ITU as the solution, which is defined as either fixed line connections or mobile subscribers per hundred inhabitants – whichever is higher. Fixed telephone lines per hundred inhabitants is calculated by dividing the number of fixed telephone lines by the total population and then multiplying by 100. Fixed telephone lines include

PSTN The public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides infrastructure and services for public telecommunication. The PSTN is the aggregate of the world's circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local teleph ...

, WLL,

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data, and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public switched telephone network. Wo ...

and

DSL Digital subscriber line (DSL; originally digital subscriber loop) is a family of technologies that are used to transmit digital data over telephone lines. In telecommunications marketing, the term DSL is widely understood to mean asymmetric dig ...

. A single ISDN or DSL subscriber connection may cater to multiple voice channels. This leads to a lack of global standard in the computation of fixed line density and hence

ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...

has recommended that all the countries shall provide the methodology of calculation of this figure in order to enhance comparability. Mobidensity or mobile cellular subscribers per hundred inhabitants is obtained by dividing the number of mobile cellular subscribers by the population and multiplying by 100. While computing Mobile cellular subscribers users of both post-paid subscriptions and pre-paid accounts are included. Inactive prepaid connections where a call has not been made or received within the last 3 months, are excluded.

Teledensity and GDP

The correlation between teledensity and per capita GDP could be represented by a straight line in a logarithmic graph. This relation was first mentioned by A.G.W. Jipp. a German engineer, in his book published in 1962. The graph is helpful to compare the telephone infrastructure development of different countries or regions, on the basis of teledensity.

Notes

{{Reflist Mass media technology Telephony Mobile telecommunications Telecommunications for development