According to the latest report from the Canada Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), wireless service and mobile data use in Canada have risen substantially over the last couple of years. In fact, wireless services have finally managing to surpass landline usage, at a ratio of approximately 86-percent to 72-percent, respectively. At the same time, about 27-percent of households in Canada only use wireless services and only around 13-percent of homes only make use of a landline. Meanwhile, Canadians used around 128.3GB of data per month in 2016. Included in that data, residents of the country are also consuming more mobile data than ever, averaging a 25-percent increase from 2015 at around 1.2GB per month. That’s coupled with a little more than a 13-percent increase over 2015’s mobile subscriber numbers, with more than 3 million additional mobile data subscribers added. More than a quarter of those users subscribe to plans that allow them access to at least 5GB of data per month.
The report also reveals that around 40-percent of communications spending by Canadians is allocated to wireless services. That shouldn’t be altogether surprising, with consideration for wireless provider satisfaction-ratings among the country’s residents – which were reported earlier this year. The spending also resulted in revenue for the wireless retail market within the country landing at around $23.2 billion, according to the CRTC. That is good news, both for Canadian telecoms companies working to expand their networks and for Canadian consumers looking for the best high-speed connection options possible. In fact, according to the report, around 83-percent of Canadians already have access to LTE-A services and almost all mobile data subscribers in the country have access to 4G LTE – with the number reportedly coming in at just short at 99-percent.
There has been plenty of growth on the home Internet side of things, as well. According to the CRTC, by the end of last year, 84-percent of Canadian residents had access to connection speeds of at least 50Mbps and upload speeds of around 10Mbps. Meanwhile, 26-percent were subscribed for those speeds. That side of the market also managed to bring in a revenue of around $10.2 billion for the 2016 fiscal year. Each of the figures covered by the CRTC is likely to have grown over the course of 2017, as well.