FINDING A PAY PHONE GETS HARDER
An Ontario politician’s proposal to ban pedestrians from using mobile phones while crossing the street is a perfect, if absurd, example of just how attached Canadians are to their smartphones.
So it came as no surprise when the federal telecom and broadcast regulator reported massive growth in the wireless sector in its annual report on the state of Canada’s $ 66.6- billion communications industry. Its report came on the heels of yet another quarter of impressive financial results from Canada’s five biggest communications companies.
The Canadian Radio- television and Telecommunications Commission found that Canadians are increasingly adopting mobile phones and internet service in lieu of landlines and television packages, although these remain staples in households across the country.
Here’s a look at four interesting take- aways from the 387- page report.
THE BIG PLAYERS
To hear Canada’s biggest wireless providers tell it, competition couldn’t be hotter as they jockey for customers.
They’ve argued vehemently against opening up their wireless networks to resellers, called mobile virtual network operators, stating this would deter investment in the networks on which Canadians rely. The Big Three wireless players, BCE Inc., Rogers Communications Inc. and Telus Corp., also argued the next spectrum auction shouldn’t favour smaller regional players.
Yet subscribers love to complain about what they see as almost uniform prices and services no matter what provider they choose.
The CRTC added some fuel to the debate with a finding that the Big Three did in fact lose a fraction of their grip on power in 2016. Their collective market share fell to 89 per cent from 90 per cent in 2015.
That said, the biggest players consolidated power across the entire communications industry, which includes internet, TV and landlines. The five largest companies accounted for 83 per cent of all revenue in 2016, up from 82 per cent in 2015. This group is made of the Big Three, plus Shaw Communications Inc. and Quebecor Inc.
BUNDLED SERVICES
Anyone who has negotiated for new TV or internet service knows the drill: It’ ll be cheaper for those who keep their landlines, no matter how many times you tell the customer service representative you don’t use it.
Companies started selling discounted bundled services years ago to stop customers from hanging up their home phones or other services they use less. But it seems Canadians might be tiring of bundled deals.
In 2016, 9.6 million subscriptions included bundled services, down 5.3 per cent from 10.2 million in 2015.
The CRTC found a peak of 10.4 million bundled subscriptions in 2013 and 2014, “which shows that the market might have reached its saturation point in 2014.”
PAY PHONES
Finding a pay phone is getting even harder. Only 57,542 pay phones remained across the country in 2016, a drop of 9,455 from the 66,997 pay phones left in 2015.
It’s even more difficult to spot a person paying 50 cents to use a pay phone. Average revenue per pay phone dropped to $ 385, down 6.7 per cent from $ 413 in 2015. That’s about two calls per day.
These relics still earned $ 22.2 million last year. Just five years ago, pay phone revenue was nearly triple at $ 64 million. Pay phones are becoming less critical as 86.1 per cent of Canadians have a mobile phone, but they are still an important service for people with low income. Plus, they can be counted on in emergency situations if a wireless network went down.
OVERAGE CHARGES
Extra data charges weren’t just seen on wireless bills this year.
Despite an increase in home internet packages with unlimited data, Canadian households paid an estimated $100 million in internet data overage charges in 2016. That amounts to about 1 per cent of the $ 10.2 billion in internet services revenue.
But Canadians are trying to avoid overage charges. The percentage of households subscribing to unlimited packages increased to 23 per cent in 2016 from just 12 per cent in 2012.