Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, it is a good paper. Please revise by on my following comments

1. In introduction, enhance the issues of the studies more clearly. Explain the consequences of poverty in more details. Create urgency why 5G is an important studies that related to poverty

2.  Clearly define the criteria for including or excluding studies in 3.3.1 and 3.3.2 Consider the specific characteristics of the studies that are relevant to the research question. This will ensure consistency in the study selection process.

3. Improve the discussion for all research questions

4. Create urgency in conclusion

 

 

 

 

1.  

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This article uses a very sophisticated literature review method, PRISMA, to study how 5G networks contribute to poverty reduction. The topic is very trendy and very interesting for vast scale of audiences. The research design is well selected and well executed and the current findings are supported by the methodology. However, there are some major and some minor remarks that authors need to take into account before I can recommend this article for publication.

Major Remarks:

-          The biggest problem of this article is that they don’t provide a definition of 5G technology, therefore, confusion happens in the article and 5G technologies emerge. There are NOT any 5G technologies and what the authors are referring to (for example in Table 5 and Table 6) are 5G network-based technologies (as the authors referred it in the introduction section). The recommendations are: 1) provide a description of and a definition of 5G technology, and 2) rename 5G technologies to 5G network-based technologies when the authors refer to the findings related to RQ2.

-          The introduction section lacks a statement of problem (SoP). They must justify why it is important to conduct such a study.

-          The discussion section should be renamed to Findings and Discussion. On the other hand, this section barely provides a discussion on findings. This section only and merely answers the research questions without explaining how? While, the authors, after providing the answers of RQ1 and RQ2 they should describe how 5G network-based technologies reduce/contribute to poverty (they should report the findings of those articles), and how technology applications (RQ3) reduce/contribute to poverty (reduction).

-          Followed by the previous comment, the contribution of the article is not presented. The goal of a literature review is to depict a comprehensive picture of the literature on the specific topic. The contribution of the article must be clearly written.

-          Conclusion section is not complete. It should cover the main findings and conclusions of this study, and provides recommendations for future research, based on the findings of this study.

Minor Remarks:

-          5g should be written by a capital G in title.

-          Place a Colon (:) instead of comma (,) in the title.

-          I did not understand the necessity of Figures 5, 6, and 7. The authors should justify the importance of their existence (by adding them into the objective of the research) or delete them.

 

-          More information about the 49 reviewed articles is needed. As a systematic literature review, it worths to provide more information about the methodology, the article type, the publication source, the publication year, etc.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper is a very comprehensive review showing the relationship between 5G and poverty and SDGs. It done systematic analysis of the existing literature. It also done sectoral contribution to poverty alleviation via 5G type of technology applications.

Authors may have to explain clear definition of 5G and its capabilities, application and speed etc in the beginning of the introduction.

Authors can also do some sort of analysis by development stage of the country, 5G applications and its impact on poverty. Although they have presented as passing references, an in-depth analysis with one or two graphs may strengthen the paper.

Authors missed the following important contribution of ICT technology applications in e-national agricultural markets in India, adding these can improve the coverage.

Reddy, A. A. (2018). Electronic national agricultural markets. Current Science, 115(5), 826-837.

Reddy, A. A., & Mehjabeen. (2019). Electronic national agricultural markets, impacts, problems and way forward. IIM Kozhikode Society & Management Review, 8(2), 143-155.

Only minor errors were there, can be improved while proof-reading.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

Very interesting article in an important topic such as the impact of technology (more specifically 5G network) in poverty. The authors correctly highlighted that “Poverty is one of the biggest problems in the world caused by the lack of resources necessary to meet the basic needs of human survival”. The methodology is well and clearly defined.

 

I have some comments.

 

1) The authors sometimes used “5g” and sometime “5G”. This should be consistent throughout the article.

2) Line 452. “RQ3. What are the applications based on 5G technology with the greatest contribution to poverty reduction?... the technological application with the greatest implication and contribution to poverty reduction is Precision agriculture”

 

I think that this is a major point in the article that should be explained/analyzed further. It makes intuitive sense but some examples might help making it more concrete. How does 5G technol

 

 3) The conclusion section is a bit short compared to the rest of the article. I think that this section could be expand further given the complete analysis in the previous sections. How can be this important analysis we useful for policymakers?

There should also be some comments about the limitations of the analysis.

 

4) The labels is figure 4 seem a bit distorted

 

5) Line 513. I don’t think that the word “conflict” should be in red.

 

6) Some of the figures, such as figure 11, require a bit more of an explanation in the legend (to make it easier for the reader to interpret the representation).

 

I think that overall is a good article in a very interesting and important topic.

 

 

 

Overall the quality of the English is acceptable, but the authors should do a minor check. 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The article has been revised and improved remarkably. I can see the authors worked on the paper and increased the quality of the work based on the comments. 

That is why I recommend the paper for being considered for publication. 

Author Response

No further comments.

Thank you very much for the positive comments.