es in specific economies: The OECD community. Several members of the "Big 5" newly industrialising countries, specifically China, India and Brazil. Sectoral scope Fixed line telephony and data Developments and modernisation. Over the past 130 years, since the inception of the Bell System in the United States in 1875, the main infrastructure INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030: TELECOM, LAND TRANSPORT, WATER AND ELECTRICITY - ISBN 92-64-02398-4 © OECD 2006 2. TELECOMS INFRASTRUCTURE TO 2030 stock in telecommunications has traditionally been in fixed line technologies, originally analogue voice telephony. This consisted of three major elements, the local loop, the switches and a trunk or long distance network. 6 Digitalisation of the infrastructure. Renewal of the technology stock largely over the period 1973-2000, led by OECD countries, moved the infrastructure of much of the world from analogue signalling and control to digital switching and transmission. The benefits of digitalisation included expanded line capacity with advanced multiplexing, a higher complexity of switching, improved speed of call set up end-to-end, and above all far higher network reliability. A richer set of features could also be added via programmability to customer premises equipment and to the network elements. The process of digitalising all telecommunication networks is nearing completion across the OECD area, with the majority of the OECD countries being 100% digital in 1999. In those countries the proportion of fixed lines connected to a digital exchange is 99% in 2005, but Hungary (88%), Spain (90%) and Turkey (90%) are among those whose networks lag the OECD average. In the developing world we see a quite different picture. As telecommunications infrastructure spend took off SO late (in the 1990s), much of the equipment was digital to begin with. Thus, India and China exhibit the latest in digital switching, alongside a much earlier generation of analogue equipment, especially in India, and to some extent in Brazil. Future of the fixed network.