Cayman Islands - Fixed telephone subscriptions (per 100 people)

The value for Fixed telephone subscriptions (per 100 people) in Cayman Islands was 54.78 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 50 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 86.49 in 2001 and a minimum value of 15.31 in 1970.

Definition: Fixed telephone subscriptions refers to the sum of active number of analogue fixed telephone lines, voice-over-IP (VoIP) subscriptions, fixed wireless local loop (WLL) subscriptions, ISDN voice-channel equivalents and fixed public payphones.

Source: International Telecommunication Union, World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report and database.

See also:

Year Value
1970 15.31
1971 15.31
1972 15.31
1973 15.31
1974 15.31
1975 20.01
1976 21.11
1977 22.38
1978 23.16
1979 24.55
1980 25.60
1984 35.95
1985 37.72
1986 38.08
1987 40.89
1988 41.96
1989 44.76
1990 48.71
1991 44.44
1992 45.91
1993 48.20
1994 57.71
1995 60.34
1997 52.62
1998 72.20
1999 77.96
2000 82.74
2001 86.49
2002 83.79
2003 81.49
2004 79.33
2005 77.14
2006 74.89
2007 67.04
2008 66.44
2009 65.35
2010 65.91
2011 64.32
2012 63.42
2013 61.26
2014 54.07
2015 54.33
2016 54.53
2017 54.85
2019 55.43
2020 54.78

Development Relevance: The quality of an economy's infrastructure, including power and communications, is an important element in investment decisions for both domestic and foreign investors. Government effort alone is not enough to meet the need for investments in modern infrastructure; public-private partnerships, especially those involving local providers and financiers, are critical for lowering costs and delivering value for money. In telecommunications, competition in the marketplace, along with sound regulation, is lowering costs, improving quality, and easing access to services around the globe. Access to telecommunication services rose on an unprecedented scale over the past two decades. This growth was driven primarily by wireless technologies and liberalization of telecommunications markets, which have enabled faster and less costly network rollout. Fixed telephone lines are those that connect a subscriber's terminal equipment to the public switched telephone network and that have a port on a telephone exchange. This term is synonymous with the term main station or Direct Exchange Line (DEL) that is commonly used in telecommunication documents. Integrated services digital network channels and fixed wireless subscribers are included. A fixed line also refers to a phone which uses a solid medium telephone line such as a metal wire or fiber optic cable for transmission as distinguished from a mobile cellular line which uses radio waves for transmission. Over the past decade new financing and technology, along with privatization and market liberalization, have spurred dramatic growth in telecommunications in many countries. With the rapid development of mobile telephony and the global expansion of the Internet, information and communication technologies are increasingly recognized as essential tools of development, contributing to global integration and enhancing public sector effectiveness, efficiency, and transparency.

Limitations and Exceptions: Operators have traditionally been the main source of telecommunications data, so information on subscriptions has been widely available for most countries. This gives a general idea of access, but a more precise measure is the penetration rate - the share of households with access to telecommunications. During the past few years more information on information and communication technology use has become available from household and business surveys. Also important are data on actual use of telecommunications services. Ideally, statistics on telecommunications (and other information and communications technologies) should be compiled for all three measures: subscriptions, access, and use. The quality of data varies among reporting countries as a result of differences in regulations covering data provision and availability. Discrepancies between global and national figures may arise when countries use a different definition than the one used by ITU. For example, some countries do not include the number of ISDN channels when calculating the number of fixed telephone lines. Discrepancies may also arise in cases where the end of a fiscal year differs from that used by ITU, which is the end of December of every year. A number of countries have fiscal years that end in March or June of every year. Data are usually not adjusted but discrepancies in the definition, reference year or the break in comparability in between years are noted in a data note. For this reason, data are not always strictly comparable. Missing values are estimated by ITU.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: A fixed telephone line (previously called main telephone line in operation) is an active line connecting the subscriber's terminal equipment to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and which has a dedicated port in the telephone exchange equipment. This term is synonymous with the terms main station or Direct Exchange Line (DEL) that are commonly used in telecommunication documents. It may not be the same as an access line or a subscriber. This should include the active number of analog fixed telephone lines, ISDN channels, fixed wireless, public payphones and VoIP subscriptions. Active lines are those that have registered an activity in the past three months. Data on fixed telephone lines are derived using administrative data that countries (usually the regulatory telecommunication authority or the Ministry in charge of telecommunications) regularly, and at least annually, collect from telecommunications operators. Data are considered to be very reliable, timely, and complete. Data for this indicator are readily available for approximately 90 percent of countries, either through ITU's World Telecommunication Indicators questionnaires or from official information available on the Ministry or Regulator's website. For the rest, information can be aggregated through operators' data (mainly through annual reports) and complemented by market research reports. Telephone lines (per 100 people) indicator is derived by all telephone lines divided by the country's population and multiplied by 100. For additional/latest information on sources and country notes, please also refer to: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

General Comments: Please cite the International Telecommunication Union for third-party use of these data.

Classification

Topic: Infrastructure Indicators

Sub-Topic: Communications