A recent report form the the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), reveals several important aspects of growth in the Canadian communications sector.
Several Sectors Stand Out with Significant Growth
Broadband services showed an increase of 9.2 percent, while portable media and cell phone video use has doubled in Canada in the past year, one of the reasons for increased telecom industry revenues over the past year. Both broadcast and specialty TV revenues also showed strong growth, driven in large measure by the wide availability of digital media and streaming video, which is used extensively by telecom companies, as a cross-platform promotional tool.
By the end of last year, there were almost nine million Canadian households subscribing to broadband Internet services, with wireless services also growing significantly, by 8.5 percent to 25.8 million users.
Growth Sectors: Broadband Internet, Wireless, and Broadcasting
From 2009 to 2010 overall telecom revenues grew by 3.6 percent, from $55.3 billion to $57.4 billion.
Revenues for telecommunications services alone reached $41.7 billion for the year, and broadcasting service revenues increased by 8.9 percent to $15.7 billion.
Broadband Internet was a popular sector for Canadian consumers, with the CRTC reporting that 77 percent of the 13.4 million households in Canada, had an Internet subscription. Many Internet subscribers preferred higher download speeds, and the percentage of households with an Internet connection with download speeds of at least 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps), increased from 62 percent to 70 percent in one year.
Canadian broadband services ranked second only to Japan in a comparison of Internet download speeds, with Canadian user subscriptions to Internet download speeds of at least 5 Mbps, rising from 44 percent to 5 percent, with an average rate of 5.5 Mbps, according to the CRTC report.
Advanced wireless networks supporting smartphones and other devices that connect to the Internet, were used by 97 percent of Canadians, and adoption of wireless services continued to grow as the number of subscribers increased to over 25.8 million.
On the other hand, home telephone service subscribers decreased by 0.9 percent to 12.6 million, as new competitors, like Wind and Publicity began to garner market share from entrenched suppliers like Bell and Rogers, to the point of capturing 25 percent of new subscribers. With their mostly prepaid subscription services, their competitive presence helped to reduce the average revenue per user from $58.81 to $57.86 per month, according to the CRTC report.
Broadcasting revenues in all sectors experienced growth in 2010, after a decline in revenues for the previous year for conventional television and radio stations. Pay and specialty television revenues increased by 11.1 percent, conventional television stations by 9.9 percent, broadcasting distribution by 8.9 percent, and commercial radio stations by 2.9 percent.
Canadians are avid TV viewers and listeners to radio, and In 2010, watched an average of 28 hours of television and listened to 17.6 hours of radio each week. Online viewing was not so popular, with only 2.6 hours and 1.5 hours, respectively, spent watching television programming online.
Sources:
- Canadians Becoming More Attached to Internet, Smartphones
- Policy Monitoring (slow loading .pdf file)
Duane Sharp - I am a retired professional engineer (electronics), with over 40 years of writing experience in technology topics, with a focus on the IT ...
