Comparing Digital Communication Systems: An empirical framework for analysing the political economy of digital infrastructures
and | Oct 24, 2020
About this article
Published Online: Oct 24, 2020
Page range: 127 - 145
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/nor-2020-0019
Keywords
© 2020 Sofie Flensburg et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Figure 1
Operationalisation of the role of the state dimension (subdimension: institutionalisation and state funding and ownership)
| State ownership of Internet service providers (%) | ITU (NTS) | |
| Broadband strategy (yes/no) | NLD | |
| 5G strategy (yes/no) | NLD | |
| State funding for broadband build-out (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Telecommunications agency responsible for digital communications services (yes/no) | NLD | |
| State ownership of submarine cables, IXPs, and ASNs (%) | TG + RIPE NCC | |
| Routing and peering policy – net neutrality (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Cable landing licence policy (yes/no) | NLD | |
| State funding for cable laying and IXPs (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Cyber security agency (yes/no) | NLD | |
| State ownership of websites, operative systems, and browsers (%) | AA + SCGS | |
| Digitalisation agency (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Domain-name policy (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Digital public service funding (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Government e-inclusion strategy (yes/no) | NLD | |
| State ownership of third-party cookies (%) | WebXray | |
| State funding for digital content (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Privacy and data-protection agency (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Data-protection policy (yes/no) | NLD | |
| Cookie rules (yes/no) | NLD | |
Operationalisation of the market dimension (subdimensions: globalisation and disruption)
| Mobile vendor market shares | SCGS | |
| Fixed-line broadband market shares | ITU (NTS) | |
| Mobile broadband market shares | NTS | |
| Submarine cable market shares | TG | |
| IXP market shares | TG | |
| ASN market shares | RIR (RIPE NCC) | |
| Top-50 websites market shares | AA | |
| Browser market shares | SCGS | |
| Operative systems market shares | SCGS | |
| Third-party cookies in top-50 market shares | AA + WebXray | |
Operationalisation of the infrastructure dimension (subdimensions: digitisation of infrastructures and digitalisation of communication)
| Internet penetration, households (%) | – | ES | |
| Smartphone ownership, households (%) | – | ES | |
| PC ownership, households (%) | – | ES | |
| Fixed line broadband subscriptions (per 100 inhabitants) | – | ITU (NTS) | |
| Mobile broadband subscriptions (per 100 inhabitants) | – | ITU (NTS) | |
| Cable landings in country (per 10 million inhabitants) | collection & accumulation of cable landings | TG | |
| Kilometres of submarine cables landing in country (per 10 million inhabitants) | collection & accumulation of cable lengths | TG | |
| IXPs (per 10 million inhabitants) | collection & accumulation of IXPs | TG | |
| ASNs (per 10 million inhabitants) | collection & accumulation of ASNs | RIR (RIPE NCC) | |
| Website categories in top 100 (%) | coding of websites according to activity categories (see measures of content indicator) | AA |
|
| National domain names (%) | – | ODNA & ILS | |
| Internet activities – use in the last three months (%): news; music, videos, games; VoD; video calls; social networks; banking; shopping; interaction with public authorities (last 12 months) | – | ES | |
Data sources
| Amazon Alexa Top Sites (AA) | 2009–2020 | web panels and cookie data | national population | not available |
| Official Domain Name Administrator (ODNA) Statistics [who-is database] | 1997–2020 | registry of national domain names | national domain names | census |
| Eurostat (ES) | 1990–2020 | online survey (collected by the National Statistical Institute) | individuals aged 16+; households | 1500 |
| International Telecommunications Union (ITU) | 2000–2020 | National Telecommunication Statistics reporting | national population | census |
| Internet Archive Wayback Machine (IAWM) | 1996–2020 | archiving of websites | World Wide Web | 330 billion web pages |
| Regional Internet Registers (RIR) Statistics – RIPE NCC Allocations | 1970–2020 | Registry of Autonomous System Number (ASN) requests | ASNs | census |
| Statcounter Global Stats (SCGS) | 2009–2020 | cookie data | national population | 2 million websites |
| TeleGeography Internet Exchange Map (TIEM) | 1989–2020 | industry participants survey (cable owners, carriers) augmented with publicly available information (e.g., FCC cable landing licenses) | submarine cables worldwide | census |
| TeleGeography Submarine Cable Map (TSCM) | 1989–2020 | industry participants survey (IXP owners) augmented with publicly available information | IXPs worldwide | census |
| National Telecommunication Statistics (NTS) | 2000–2020 | industry participants reporting | broadband connections nationwide | census |
The digital communication system analytical matrix
| What are the existing devices and access networks for digital communication? | Who owns and controls devices and access networks? | How does the state regulate devices and access networks? | |
| What are the existing backbone networks for digital communication? | Who owns and controls backbone networks? | How does the state regulate backbone networks? | |
| What are the existing applications for digital com munication? | Who owns and controls digital communication applications? | How does the state regulate communication applications? | |
| What are existing types of digital communication content? | Who owns and controls digital communication content? | How does the state regulate communication content? |