Canadian Commission Releases Market Report

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has released its sixth annual Telecom Monitoring Report. This year's report shows that the development and adoption of new technologies continued to impact the industry by reducing costs and enabling the delivery of traditional services by non-traditional service providers such as cable broadcasting distribution undertakings (BDUs).

"The telecommunications sector is evolving rapidly as we move towards increased reliance on market forces," said CRTC Chairman Charles Dalfen. "Monitoring the latest developments in the industry is of vital importance in carrying out our mandate."

Total telecommunications service revenues increased by 3.5% while competitors' share of these revenues increased to 35%. The vast majority of the increase in telecommunications revenues is attributable to the revenue growth of high-speed Internet and wireless services.

Canada continued to have a very high wireline and wireless telephone household penetration rate of 98.9% and a very high Internet household subscription rate of 64%. Moreover, 51% of all households subscribed to high-speed Internet service in 2005.

The telecommunications industry capital expenditures fell slightly from CA$5.7 (US$5) billion in 2004 to CA$5.6 (US$4.95) billion in 2005.

The wireless market continued to display strong growth and remained competitive as revenues grew by 16.2%, from $9.5 (US$8.4) billion in 2004 to $11 (US$9.7) billion in 2005, making wireless the largest and fastest growing sector in the telecommunications market.

The Government requested in 2000 that the Commission report annually over a five-year period on the status of competition in the Canadian telecommunications industry. The last report of the series was published in October 2005; the Commission then decided to continue with its monitoring and with the publication of an annual report in order to help stakeholders keep up to date on the Canadian telecom industry.

You can download the full report (117 pages) from http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/publications/reports/PolicyMonitoring/2006/tmr2006.pdf"

Posted to the site on 31st July 2006