Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy
The Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy (JTDE) is an international, high quality, peer reviewed journal, indexed by Scopus and Google Scholar, covering innovative research and practice in Telecommunications, Digital Economy and Applications. The mission of JTDE is to further through publication the objective of advancing learning, knowledge and research worldwide. The JTDE publishes peer-reviewed papers that may take the following form: Research Paper - a paper making an original contribution to engineering knowledge. Special Interest Paper – a report on significant aspects of a major or notable project. Review Paper – an overview of a relevant area, preferably written for well informed but non-specialist readers. Public Policy Discussion - a paper that identifies or discusses public policy and includes investigation of legislation, regulation or best practice. Tutorial Paper – a paper that explains an important subject or clarifies the approach to an area of design or investigation. Technical Note – a technical note or letter to the Editors that is not sufficiently developed or extensive in scope to constitute a full paper. Industry Case Study - a paper that provides details of industry practices utilising a case study to provide an understanding of what is occurring and how the outcomes have been achieved. Discussion – a contribution to discuss a published paper to which the original author's response will be sought. Biography or History - a paper covering a historical person or topic related to telecommunications or the digital economy. Interested in submitting to this journal? We recommend that you review the About the Journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the Author Guidelines. Authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. Papers submitted to the Journal are continuously published into four issues annually. Authors of papers accepted for publishing after the peer-review process should expect to see the paper appear in the Journal after the copyedit and layout processes are completed. Open Access Option Regular papers are open access after one year and have restricted access for the first year after publication. Optionally, you can make your paper open access from the date of publication for a fee of AUD 440, paid to the Telecommunications Association (TelSoc), publisher of this Journal. Peer Review Process Papers submitted to the journal will be peer reviewed by two reviewers initially using a doubly anonymous peer review. Papers will be reviewed in accordance with the journal review criteria and reviews should be carried out, where possible, within four weeks. The papers submitted to the Journal are Scopus indexed. Ethical Standards The ethical standards statement can be found here Sponsors Telecommunications Association Inc. Journal History This Journal continues the traditions of the Telecommunications Journal of Australia (TJA), which was first published in 1935. Essentially the same editorial toard that produced the TJA from 2007 to June 2013 moved in July 2013 to create our new Journal, the Australian Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy. In 2019, the Journal was renamed to the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, in recognition of its wider international scope. Editor-in-Chief: Dr Michael de Percy, University of Canberra
Copyright Telecommunications Association Inc.
Cybersecurity and Innovation in the Evolving Digital Economy
This editorial introduces the September 2025 issue of the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, spotlighting the intersection of cybersecurity, emerging technologies, and historical lessons in the digital economy. As digital transformation accelerates, threats to IoT, cloud, and 5G ecosystems proliferate, demanding innovative, resource-efficient solutions for SMEs and emerging markets. Contributions in this issue – from machine learning-driven threat detection to zero-trust architectures and reflections on telecom automation – highlight human and organisational factors in resilience. They bridge legacy telecommunications with future-oriented strategies, underscoring the journal's commitment to fostering adaptive digital ecosystems amid persistent vulnerabilities.
Copyright (c) 2025 Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Comments on the Two Historical Reprints in Automation of Directory Assistance
This paper is a comment on the background to the two historical papers reproduced in “Automation of Directory Assistance” in this issue. The experience of this author is that, despite a rapid decline in the service quality and mounting operating costs, Telecom was slow to act on automation of the Directory Assistance Service, did not fully exploit the advantages of the automated system, and provided a Directory Assistance Service that was clearly inferior to world’s best practice. Some benchmarking results are provided as evidence.
History of Australian telecommunications
The Journal revisits two historic papers from 1981/82 that describe a successful trial in Sydney of a computer-based system to automate the Directory Assistance manual card records in Australia. The trial led to the implementation of a national Directory Assistance system which provided productivity improvements but fell short of the performance achieved by similar systems in the USA.
History of Australian Telecommunications
Clemens William (“Clem”) Pratt 2 July 1936–16 January 2025
This paper is an appreciation of the life and contributions of Dr C. W. (Clem) Pratt, who died in January 2025. He had a 38-year career with the PMG’s Department and its successors, working first on traffic engineering and then expanding his career and interests into computing and operational support systems. He was a Distinguished Fellow of the Telecommunications Society of Australia, having been Vice-Chairman of the National Board for 17 years. He was active in the Statistical Society of Australia, serving as national Chairman for one term. He was a long-term member of the Advisory Council for the International Teletraffic Congresses and an influential educator on teletraffic engineering and related statistical methods.
An Energy-Efficient Based Secure IOT Data Transfer with Hashed Data Access Policy Using ACROT-DHSKECC and LSCRC32
The rapid expansion of Internet of Things (IoT) applications in healthcare has amplified the need for secure, efficient, and scalable data transmission frameworks. This study proposes an energy-aware and secure IoT-based data transmission architecture tailored for remote healthcare monitoring systems. Unlike conventional encryption-centric models, the proposed framework integrates lightweight double encryption (ACROT-DHSKECC) and hashed access control (LSCRC32) with optimised network path selection using clustering and Grasshopper Optimisation Algorithm (GOA). This integration reduces latency, enhances node-level energy efficiency, and secures data transmission over distributed networks. The system’s design aligns with next-generation telecom infrastructure, making it well-suited for deployment in 5G-enabled smart healthcare environments. Simulation results demonstrate reduced hash generation time, lower memory usage, and enhanced encryption performance, affirming its viability for secure data delivery in modern digital health ecosystems.
Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA)
This editorial introduces a new issue of the Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy, exploring the growth of the digital economy post-COVID-19. The pandemic accelerated online interactions, revealing a lag in social norms despite decades-old technologies. Developed nations integrate AI into shopping, while developing countries advance rapidly, yet design principles remain rooted in tradition. The contributions in this issue underscore the human element in technology adoption and the Journal’s role in bridging telecommunications’ legacy with today’s digital challenges, enriching understanding of the evolving digital economy.
The Journal revisits an historic paper from 1974 that reflects on the centenary of the formation of the Society and its associated Journal. Five historic technical papers from the 19th century, reproduced in 1974, have also been extracted.
The Telegraph Electrical Society of Melbourne
The Postal Electrical Society of Victoria
The Telecommunication Journal of Australia
A Lightweight Zero-Trust Architecture Implementation for Enhancing Cybersecurity in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
Confronted by resource limitations and sophisticated cyber threats, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) require tailored cybersecurity solutions. This research introduces and validates a Lightweight Zero-Trust Architecture (LZTA) specifically designed for SMEs. The proposed LZTA effectively integrates contextual access verification, multi-factor authentication, and role-based access control to ensure robust security without imposing excessive costs. Crucially, rigorous benchmarking demonstrated that the LZTA manages high-concurrency loads while significantly outperforming conventional and open-source Zero-Trust baselines in both response time and throughput. This work delivers a practical and high-performance blueprint for SMEs to adopt Zero-Trust principles, effectively balancing robust security with the operational constraints of smaller organisations.
Book Review: The Interconnected Life of Peter Gerrand
Peter Gerrand was editor-in-chief of this journal and its predecessors from 1994 to 2015. An engineer trained at Melbourne and Monash universities, he worked from the 1960s to the 1990s at the Melbourne research laboratories of the PMG, Telecom Australia and Telstra. He ran CITRI (1993–1996), the Collaborative IT Research Institute founded by Melbourne and RMIT universities, and Melbourne IT (1996–2000), floating the latter on the Australian Stock Exchange in December 1999. This short autobiography provides astute personal insights into a career that spanned the Australian telecommunications industry’s historic transitions from monopoly to competition, from public to private enterprise, and from analogue to digital communications networks.
In the 90th year of publication of this, our local journal, it is fitting to look back at some technologies or services that were once popular topics but whose time has now passed. This paper looks at the history of the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) as it is reflected in the pages of the Telecommunication Journal of Australia (TJA). ISDN was popular in the 1980s: in the period 1984–1990, no less than 15 papers were published in the TJA, about 6% of the papers in those years. ISDN quickly disappeared from publications with the rise of the Internet and ADSL in the 1990s. The accompanying historical reprint from 1986 describes the transmission issues associated with providing ISDN customer access and presents some of the design decisions made by Telecom Australia.
Guest Editorial: Driving the Digital Economy with Cutting-Edge Technologies, Innovation and Data Analytics
Navigating the complex terrain of digital transformation, this special issue presents a selection of studies that maps the intricate intersections of technological innovation, economic strategies, and organisational adaptation. The preamble traces the evolutionary pathways of digital transformation from its nascent stages to the current epoch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and complex technological ecosystems. The articles selected for this special issue have been organised into three sections based on the major themes addressed in this special issue: (1) Financial technologies (Fintech) Horizons: Gamification, AI, and the Evolution of Digital Financial Ecosystems; (2) AI-Driven Strategies in Marketing and Social Media; and (3) Data Dynamics and Organisational innovation. The concluding section, ‘Towards a Comprehensive Epistemological Framework of Digital Innovation in the AI Epoch,’ synthesises the diverse research narratives, offering a forward-looking perspective that underscores the universal yet contextually nuanced impact of digital technologies across global economic and technological landscapes.
Special Issue: Driving the Digital Economy
Remembering Keith Barnes and the Saudi Project
Keith Barnes died at age 92 on 3 January 2025. He devoted his whole working life to PMG and Telecom. He rose from the ranks in the Queensland State Administration to become Chief Planning Engineer in Telecom Headquarters. Keith did it his way, but his story is broadly typical of many others who contributed to the great infrastructure-building era of telecommunications in the post-war era. What is not typical is Keith’s last major assignment, which was to lead the in-country team from Telecom Australia to provide a wide range of professional advice and support to Saudi Telecom. The assignment was unique, big and challenging. In this article the authors pay tribute to Keith and the team, and reflect upon the Saudi project itself.
Echoes of 1935, Signals of 2025: A 90-Year Journey
This editorial bridges the past and future of telecommunications and the digital economy. It highlights the third collaboration with the International Conference on Digital Economy, following its ninth conference in Morocco in 2024. The conference inspired the Special Issue section, ‘Driving the Digital Economy with Cutting-Edge Technologies, Innovation, and Data Analytics,’ alongside the Telecommunications articles in this March 2025 issue. These contributions signal the Journal’s forward-looking vision. Meanwhile, the Biography and History sections reflect on the Journal’s legacy, marking the 90th anniversary of continuous publication. The editorial concludes with gratitude to the outgoing Managing Editor for his pivotal support during the new Editor-in-Chief’s inaugural issue.
The Impact of 5G on Business Models for Mobile Operators in Emerging Markets
The advent of 5G wireless technologies has created new opportunities and challenges for mobile operators in emerging markets. However, the disruptive nature of 5G networks is likely to transform existing value chains and impact the current mobile operator-centric ecosystem, rendering traditional business models inadequate. The introduction of 5G networks therefore requires the adoption of new business models or the reconfiguration of existing ones to ensure that mobile operators can achieve both economic value and technological innovation in a sustainable way. This study investigates the factors that impact business models of mobile operators in emerging markets as a result of 5G deployment. The study was conducted using the qualitative research method by adopting an interpretivist research philosophy. Primary data was collected inductively through a case study approach with 10 semi-structured online interviews conducted in 8 emerging markets in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. The results show that when 5G is commercially deployed, several aspects, including internal, external and hybrid factors impact the business models of mobile operators.
The Journal revisits several historic papers from 1935, 1938 and 1939 that reflect on the formation of the Society and its associated Journal.
Gamification of Mobile Banking Applications
Gamification has become a pivotal strategy for enhancing user experiences in digital platforms, particularly in mobile banking applications. The objective of this study is to investigate how gamification can improve user engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty of M-Banking users. This paper presents a systematic literature review, which was refined to 16 articles after rigorous filtering of multiple academic databases. The corpus explores various gamification elements, such as rewards, leaderboards, and challenges, through frameworks namely Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 (UTAUT2), as well as clustering methodologies. The findings demonstrate a strong positive impact of gamification on user behavior and adoption. Nevertheless, significant gaps persist, highlighting the need for further research and innovation in this area. This review provides valuable insights for banking professionals and offers directions for future research to further optimize gamified mobile banking applications.
While Streaming Video on Demand (SVOD) consumers may express a desire for unlimited new and novel choices, excess choice can cause anxiety and choice overload. Further, familiarity can also influence perceptions of available choices. Addressing a gap in the literature on familiarity’s interaction with choice numeracy in an SVOD recommendation environment, this 2x2 experiment examines effects of choice-set size of TV sitcoms on potential use/perceptions of SVOD platforms and to what extent familiarity with the choices interacts with those perceptions through examining differences and interactions between small vs large choice sets, and familiar vs non-familiar shows. Familiarity tends to override potential choice overload effects and non-familiarity tends to exacerbate negative effects associated with too much choice, which has implications for purveyors of not only SVOD systems but other digital applications with similar recommendation systems, such as music streaming and podcasts, to emphasise choices that are likely to have familiarity to consumers, especially when interfaces themselves may be unfamiliar.
Measurement scale for online flow conditions
The concept of online flow refers to users' immersive and holistic experience while browsing the internet. Although this cognitive state has been widely studied, it depends on specific conditions often analysed from the user's perspective, such as the balance between demands and abilities, the clarity of objectives, and the nature of feedback received. This study aims to explore online flow conditions specifically in shopping applications by proposing a measurement scale, an area that has received limited attention in the literature. To achieve this, an in-depth literature review was conducted, followed by methodological procedures for scale construction outlined by DeVellis (2017). This process involved defining relevant dimensions, formulating specific items, and applying them to a sample of 200 shopping applications from Brazil and Spain, along with rigorous validation and confirmation of the scale's internal consistency. The results reveal the creation of an innovative and statistically validated scale, demonstrating its effectiveness as a tool for measuring online flow conditions in virtual environments. Applying this scale provides valuable insights for developers, enabling the creation of digital environments that foster flow and enhance user engagement.
Human and organisational factors influencing the preparedness of small and medium-sized enterprises against cyber-attacks in developing countries
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are particularly susceptible to cyber-attacks, which can have considerable ramifications for both the organisation and the global economy. These include, for example, phishing, ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, malware and Trojans. Notwithstanding the latent nature of the problem, there remains a research gap in the study of cyber-attacks among organisations. The objective of this research is to examine the factors that influence the occurrence of cyber-attacks on SMEs in a developing country. To this end, a quantitative study was conducted. A total of 112 surveys were collected and analysed using SmartPLS 4 software, with the aid of a Partial Least Squares PLS-SEM proposed and developed. The findings indicate that a significant proportion of SMEs, 33%, have experienced a cyber-attack. Furthermore, the study identified the two most significant factors influencing cyber-attacks on SMEs: human talent and resources. Furthermore, the study emphasised the importance of cyber awareness, supplier relationships and organisational cybersecurity preparedness. These findings have practical implications for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the education sector, and the closing of the research gap concerning cyber-attacks in these organisations. This study makes a contribution to existing knowledge about the information security challenges faced by small businesses in emerging economies.
This editorial offers some observations about recent moves by the Australian Government to restrict access to social media by young people. It also outlines the other content of this December issue and notes some personnel changes in 2025.
Copyright (c) 2024 Journal of Telecommunications and the Digital Economy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Predicting Cryptocurrency Prices with a Hybrid ARIMA and LSTM Model
Cryptocurrencies have attracted significant attention from investors, regulators and the media since their emergence. In a world where digital advancements are increasingly included in everyday relations, studying the behaviour of cryptocurrencies and their impact on financial markets becomes a necessity. This paper introduces a comparative analysis towards a hybrid model combining classical and modern methods for predicting cryptocurrency prices. This study deals with everyday recordings of 10 cryptocurrencies that represent different technological innovations and use cases. Studying these cryptocurrencies can help understand volatility, volumes and price movements. We aim to develop a time series statistical model and to study the effectiveness of deep learning (DL) models, specifically long short-term memory (LSTM) model and the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model, for predicting cryptocurrency prices accurately and forecasting stationary data. Combining ARIMA and LSTM, we managed to obtain a high value of R² for Binance Coin (BNB) cryptocurrency (0.936) with an average R² for all evaluated cryptocurrencies of 0.6555.
This is the Charles Todd Oration 2024, delivered by Will Irving on 17 October 2024 in Sydney. It outlines, from a Telstra-internal viewpoint, the various proposed network enhancements that eventually led to Australia’s National Broadband Network. It then draws lessons for the future from this history and the current state of telecommunications in Australia. The question-and-answer session after the Oration is also summarised.
Integration of Non-Terrestrial Network for 5G IoT and Future 6G
The exponential growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) has spurred the need for robust and extensive connectivity solutions. In response to the market and use-case requirements, the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) introduced Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT). The latest NB-IoT integration with Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) aims to bridge the coverage gaps in challenging terrains and address capacity issues in dense urban environments through the utilisation of satellites and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This research paper explores the potential of NTN systems to complement and enhance the capabilities of 5G NB-IoT and 6G technologies. Through a combination of academic research and simulation, it seeks to evaluate the advantages of NTN, such as extended coverage and improved signal quality, for massive IoT device connectivity. Our simulation results demonstrate a trade-off between coverage and network capacity: while higher UAV altitudes provide extensive coverage by reaching more receivers, they also suffer from reduced signal strength and capacity due to increased path loss. This paper provides an overview of technical specifications and challenges related to NB-IoT and NTN, an assessment of NB-IoT NTN performance in a real-world scenario, and an analytical framework with simplified graphical representations for evaluating NTN integration into NB-IoT.
E-Commerce Security Issues, Then and Now
Simon Moorhead’s recent historical reprint (December 2024) revisiting Dez Blanchfield’s December 2000 paper in TJA on e-commerce security has stimulated this author to make additional comments on the weaknesses of major websites and of email systems today in permitting fraud and deception, in comparison to 24 years ago.
Teleworking in the Covid-19 pandemic has become a widespread practice adopted by companies worldwide, providing a unique opportunity to experiment with it on a large scale. This study aimed to elucidate the organisational factors facilitating the successful implementation of telework. The primary objective was to identify the organisational and individual prerequisites, as well as the mediating mechanisms, necessary for the successful establishment of telework and measured by the telework outcomes. To do so, we developed a conceptual model to analyse the factors influencing the success of this transition and we tested it on a sample of 171 employees from the banking, IT, and telecommunication sectors. The results indicate that perceived autonomy, management of work-family conflict, and organisational support are key factors in ensuring employee satisfaction, performance, and engagement within this new work framework. However, telework does not have a direct impact on these outcomes without mediating mechanisms.
How Travel Agencies Innovate their Business Models
Although artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have considerable potential to solve various problems, there are still many challenges related to a lack of knowledge on how to strategically use these technological advances in order to innovate the business model. This research aims to explore the role of AI and marketing automation (MA) in business model innovation in the Tunisian tourism sector. We employed a dual qualitative approach, integrating 16 semi-structured interviews and six projective techniques, both conducted with travel agency managers. The resulting framework presents three phases of the business model (BM). In the first phase, the classic BM, based on the knowledge-based view (KBV), integrates business strategy, market positioning and organisational culture. In the second phase, this traditional BM evolves into a dynamic BM by modifying its components. Thus, the BM is adapted through digital offerings and customer value creation. The final phase is BM innovation, driven by the integration of AI and MA. The obtained results also highlight several barriers to the adoption of these technologies, such as trust-related issues, technology fusion, and the availability of resources and market challenges that hinder the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 3.
Deep Learning-Based Facial Emotion Recognition for Detecting Brand Hate
This paper aims to recognise three levels of consumer hate – cold hate, cool hate and hot hate – through facial emotion recognition. It compares the use of transfer learning approaches and custom convolutional neural network (CNN) approaches. Five classes of emotions were considered in this research: fear, anger, disgust and contempt as indicators of a brand with hate, and happy as an indicator of non-brand hate. The databases used are AffectNet and RAF_DB. Multiple facial expressions are included in our dataset, which consists of about 23,529 images belonging to five classes in the training set and 10,088 images belonging to five classes in the testing set. The custom CNN model achieved an accuracy of 78.4% when validated on the testing set, compared to the VGG-16 model, which achieved an accuracy 79%, respectively. The confusion matrix was used to verify the findings, confirming that the custom CNN model outperforms the pre-trained models. Notably, it successfully detected brand hate emotions with an accuracy of 85%. This paper employs facial emotion recognition – a behavioural expression measure – to help companies capture the emotional responses of haters.
Why Micro-influencers are Sharing Digital Brand Content in a B2B Context
This research aims to contribute in understanding micro-influencers’ behaviour in sharing digital brand content by focusing on business networking sites (LinkedIn, Xing). This choice was influenced by two considerations: first, marketing influence literature which is highly dominated by studies of B2C digital context to the detriment of B2B digital context despite their crucial importance in the marketing arena. And second, given their particularity, micro-influencers are more likely to have motivations that are totally or partially different from what the literature suggests for all influencers in general. Based on a mixed-technique analysis (MLM) and bias-corrected bootstrap method, this research was conducted by administering a large survey to 312 micro-influencers, who were selected according to a new methodological algorithmic approach called metric-behavioural. The results not only cover the identification of salient drivers that lead the sharing of digital brand content by micro-influencers in a specific area but also validate the robustness of the use of the theory of planned behaviour in a B2B social media context. By considering these results, the paper provides a practical guidance for companies, urging them to tailor their influence marketing strategies for effective engagement in B2B and B2G contexts.
Corporate Governance at the Crossroads of AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing corporate governance (CG), creating a lack of consensus among studies regarding its impact. The purpose of this article is to critically explore scholars’ perspectives on AI’s transformative role in CG, from one side, and suggest the necessary strategies to ensure its responsible and effective integration from another side. The authors have conducted a systematic literature review following the PRISMA flowcharts, analysed 24 indexed journal articles and conference papers using Zotero for reference management, and VOSviewer for bibliometric analysis. The findings start by a double analysis of the AI implementation in CG - ‘nice-to-have’ or ‘must-have’ versus ‘disruption’ or ‘integration’ - categorising the literature into three groups drawing for scholars: ‘enhancers’, ‘integrators’, ‘pioneers’ and a fourth category perceived by the authors, ‘catalysts’. In addition, a set of five strategies for optimising AI use is proposed: ethical frameworks, strengthened governance, skills development, transparency and control mechanisms, and aligning AI with strategic objectives. This study aims to fill two inter-correlated research gaps: exploring how AI is perceived in governance contexts and its potential to integrate with or disrupt traditional structures and establishing a theoretical intersection between the ‘governance of AI’ and the ‘governance by AI’.
Empowering Data Spaces for Future Mobility
Recognising the growing demand for sovereign and interoperable data exchange in advanced mobility services, this paper presents a conceptual framework for developing data spaces within the data economy. Drawing on the Gaia-X initiative, we address the challenges of ensuring data sovereignty and cross-organisational collaboration in complex, diverse data ecosystems. By applying the Institutional Role Model (IRM), we systematically identify and classify 32 distinct organisational roles, organised into eight overarching meta-roles, that are crucial for the successful operation of a data space. Based on expert interviews and the in-depth analysis of two practical use cases, our approach uncovers how technological and economic roles interact to enable the seamless and sovereign exchange of mobility data. The findings enhance theoretical understanding of role-based data space structures and provide insights into data ecosystems’ design, governance, and implementation. Stakeholders looking to leverage data space for efficient, sovereign, and innovative mobility services will find these insights highly valuable.