Total Assessment and Optimization of Telecommunication Sectors by Multivariate Approach

This paper presents a multivariate approach for total assessment and ranking of telecommunication sectors based on standards indicators identified by International Telecommunication Union (ITU). The model is based on Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and is verified and validated by Spearman correlation technique. The indicators are categorized as telephone network size, other services, quality of service, traffic, tariffs, staff, demography, economy, information technology, broadcasting and mobile services. To present the applicability of the approach, data for the year 2003 of 27 developed and developing countries are used. A total of 9 indicators are considered, out of which 4 are inputs and 6 are outputs respectively. The results show weak and strong points of each sector and identifies the most efficient inputs or outputs which can aid management in overall assessment and optimization. This is the first study that presents an integrated multivariate approach for total assessment and improvement of the telecommunication sectors.