TY - JOUR
T1 - Diffusion of digital mobile telephony
T2 - Are developing countries different?
AU - Rouvinen, Petri
N1 - Funding Information:
Part of the Wireless Communication Research Program (brie-etla.org) of BRIE, the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy at the University of California at Berkeley, and ETLA, the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy. The author would like to thank Derek Jones, Heli Koski, Tobias Kretschmer, Matti Pohjola, Pekka Ylä-Anttila, and the participants of the UNU/WIDER Conference on the New Economy in Development for comments and suggestions. This work was completed while the author was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. The hospitality of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, as well as the financial support of the Academy of Finland and the Yrjö Jahnsson Foundation, are gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 2006/2
Y1 - 2006/2
N2 - Factors determining the diffusion of digital mobile telephony across developed and developing countries are studied with the aid of a Gompertz model. After controlling for other factors, the speed of diffusion per se is not significantly different between the two groups of countries. Standards competition hinders and market competition promotes diffusion in both groups. Various factors are, however, more important in a developing country context: having a large potential user base, accumulating network effects, being open, commanding a high (non-telecom) technological level, and introducing innovation(s) complementing mobile telephony. Late entrants experience faster diffusion promoting cross-country convergence.
AB - Factors determining the diffusion of digital mobile telephony across developed and developing countries are studied with the aid of a Gompertz model. After controlling for other factors, the speed of diffusion per se is not significantly different between the two groups of countries. Standards competition hinders and market competition promotes diffusion in both groups. Various factors are, however, more important in a developing country context: having a large potential user base, accumulating network effects, being open, commanding a high (non-telecom) technological level, and introducing innovation(s) complementing mobile telephony. Late entrants experience faster diffusion promoting cross-country convergence.
KW - Developing countries
KW - Gompertz model
KW - Mobile telephony
KW - Technology diffusion
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=31044448667&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.telpol.2005.06.014
DO - 10.1016/j.telpol.2005.06.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:31044448667
SN - 0308-5961
VL - 30
SP - 46
EP - 63
JO - Telecommunications Policy
JF - Telecommunications Policy
IS - 1
ER -
