CRTC issues report on communications and broadcasting industries
By Adnews Staff
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has issued its annual Communications Monitoring Report reviewing the Canadian telecommunications and broadcasting industries. According to the report, in 2010 the number of Canadian households subscribing to broadband Internet service rose by 9.2% to approximately 9 million, while the number of subscribers to wireless services grew by 8.5% to 25.8 million. In 2010, wireless networks supporting smartphones reached to 97% of the population. The number of subscribers to home telephone services decreased by 0.9% to 12.6 million. The report found that 77% of the 13.4 million households in Canada had an Internet subscription. Households with a high speed connection of at least 1.5 megabits per second rose from 62% to 70% in one year, while users of services with speeds of at least five Mbps rose from 44% to 52%. In 2010, Canadians watched an average of 28 hours of television and listened to 17.6 hours of radio each week, as well as 4.8 hours of streaming radio programming. The number of Canadians who watched a video on their cellphones doubled to nine percent of anglophones and four percent of francophones. Between 2009 and 2010, the revenue of the communications industry increased by 3.6% from $55.3 billion to $57.4 billion. Revenues for telecommunications services grew by 1.8% to $41.7 billion, while those for broadcasting services increased by 8.9% to $15.7 billion. "It is encouraging to see Canadians taking up broadband Internet and wireless services in such large numbers," said Konrad von Finckenstein, chairman of the CRTC. "This not only signals a strong participation in the digital economy, but is also a clear indication that Canadians are increasingly using a variety of platforms to communicate and access content and services."