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The Importance of Accurate Internet User Data
“Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.”
― Xenophon (Greek historian, author of the Anabasis, BC 431-350)
TIM KATLIC (United States of America)
Internet penetration rates are often used to structure ICT policy and to attract investment. If
Internet user data is important to economic growth, why isn’t it more accurate?
As most are aware, there is no sure-fire way to quantify the number of Internet users in
countries where household Internet access is low. The reason being multiple users per
subscription or access point (often a café with dozens of users). The same challenge goes
toward counting mobile subscriptions, since many mobile owners rely on multiple carriers.
The ITU puts some effort into estimating the number of Internet users, but the
organization’s data lags by two years. Still, it has become standard fare in reports,
whitepapers, benchmarks, and infographics. The ITU realizes the best method for data
collection is the old-fashioned questionnaire, but what happens when that method is
rejected at the local level? Thus is the other challenge we face with finding “good” data.
On top of timeliness, there is no true “apples to apples” method for comparing Internet
penetration rates across nations. Issues arise with how the ITU stats are sourced. The ITU
relies upon government websites and operators’ annual reports for nations that do not
respond to the annual questionnaire. It’s not reasonable to assume all operators collect
data using the same means.
So, is any Data better than no Data?
Internet World Stats routinely publishes updated Facebook user data at a country level. This data is
some of the best available – it’s direct from Facebook itself and can be determined in realt-time. Of
course, the set is limited to users who report a location, and at that, their actual location. Still, one
would imagine that the Facebook user data under-reports the number of real Facebook users in a
given nation since many users do not provide more than just a name and photo. However, we find
the opposite if we are to merge current Facebook and ITU data.