Netherlands, Canada and Sweden are 3 countries that chose to install outstanding network infrastructure for A&R. Removing those outliers reduces the R^2 to 0.41 for the exponential trendline but increases R^2 for the linear fit to 0.37. Removing the outlier at NRI = 4.95 (Japan) changes the R^2 for exp to 0.4 and the increases the linear fit  R^2 to  0.39.