Countries Included: All world countries, economic regions, geographical regions
Years Covered: From 1993 to 2008
Indicators: Over 50 indicators from our database of 1,000 are currently display by Econ Stats
Data Sources: IMF, World Bank, UN, OECD, CIA World Factbook, Internet World Statistics, The Heritage Foundation and Transparency International
Last Updated: 1st August 2011
The number of telephone lines per population used to be a good measure of the development of an economy and level of globalization and integration into the world economy. Today, mobile phone and internet penetration is a better measure. Some emerging economies are leapfrogging fixed lines entirely and focusing on the more flexible and less capital intensive activities of connecting cellular phones and computers to the internet.