What is the difference between “subscriber” and “user” data that the OECD publishes?
One of the best ways to illustrate the difference between “subscriber” and “user” statistics is to consider another telecom example: the number of payphones in a country. Telecommunication operators know exactly how many payphones they have in operation and they can provide this data very easily to regulators if asked. This data can be a timely and accurate assessment of the extent of the payphone network in a country. While operators do know the total number of payphones they cannot provide data on how many different users make calls from the payphone each month. Telecommunication operators have no good way to distinguish one payphone caller from another. They only know when a call is made. If regulators want to know how many people make use of payphones the best way to approach the question is by using surveys. It is possible to get an idea of the number of payphone users in a country by asking a subset of people whether they’ve recently made a call from a payphone and then extrapola
