Telephones

Fixed telephone lines and mobile subscriptions per 100 people.

Fixed telephone lines are the landlines in service per 100 people; mobile subscriptions are the active mobile phone contracts and prepaid cards per 100 people, which can exceed 100 where people have several. Together they trace how the telephone spread over sixty years, and how in poorer countries the mobile phone arrived before the landline ever did. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) compiles the figures from operators and regulators, and the World Bank republishes them.

• Society
• Technology
• Telecommunications
• ITU
• Country
• Year