News release

November 25^th, 2004

CRTC issues its 2004 Telecom Monitoring Report

OTTAWA-GATINEAU - The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) released its fourth annual report today on the status of competition in the Canadian telecommunications industry for 2003.

The report provides information on the telecommunications industry, including the regulatory regime, key players, the status of competition, its effects on customers and the status of broadband infrastructure across the country.

Last year, the wireless and Internet markets continued to drive growth in the Canadian telecommunications industry, with both markets experiencing double digit revenue growth. The revenues in the remaining markets, including local, long distance, and data and private line markets declined in 2003.

The report indicates that while the majority of Canadians continue to believe that they have benefited from competition, last year remained difficult for many wireline companies. In particular, competitors in the local wireline market made little progress as incumbent telephone companies provided over 93.7% of local lines. Competition in this market was primarily confined to the major urban centres where they generally had between 0.1% and 26.9% of the local business lines and between 1.6% and 17.6% of the local residential lines.

This report also indicates that Canadians are connected as Canada continues to have a very high telephone penetration rate of 98.7 subscribers per 100 households, and a very high Internet subscription rate of 56 Internet subscribers per 100 households.

"Our analyses indicate that although Canadians continue to be connected and have benefited from competition, more needs to be done to ensure that we achieve our goal of sustainable facilities-based competition" said Charles Dalfen, Chairman of the CRTC.

Report highlights:

• Total telecommunications revenues for 2003 were $31.8 billion, an increase of 1.1% over the previous year.
• All providers, wireless and wireline, reduced capital expenditures in 2003. Overall, capital expenditures were down by 17%.

Local wireline

• In the local wireline market, local revenues declined by 3% and the number of lines increased very slightly by 0.2%.

Long distance

• Long distance revenues continued to decline, decreasing by 9% from $6.5 billion to $5.9 billion, while the number of minutes increased by 1.8%. The competitors' share of this declining market increased slightly from 28% in 2002 to 30% in 2003.

Data and private line

• Data and private line revenues decreased by 1.4% over the previous year. This decline was the result of private line revenues that declined by 6.3%, offsetting a 4.4% revenue growth in the data segment. The competitors' market share remained unchanged at 20%.

Internet

• Internet revenues increased from $3.3 billion in 2002 to $3.7 billion in 2003, an 11% increase.

Wireless

• The wireless market continued to be very competitive and displayed strong growth. Wireless revenues increased from $7.1 billion in 2002 to $8.0 billion in 2003, a 13% increase.

Broadband deployment

• The roll-out of broadband infrastructure continued to progress, with approximately 86% of Canadian households now having access to broadband services, of these, 42% actually subscribe.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is an independent public authority that regulates and supervises broadcasting and telecommunications in Canada.

Reference document: Report to the Governor in Council: Status of Competition in Canadian Telecommunications Markets - November 2004
[.htm] [.pdf]

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Media Relations:
   MediaRelations@crtc.gc.ca, Tel: (819) 997-9403, Fax: (819) 997-4245

General Inquiries:
   Tel: (819) 997-0313, TDD: (819) 994-0423, Fax: (819) 994-0218
   Toll-free # 1-877-249-CRTC (2782), eMail: info@crtc.gc.ca
   TDD - Toll-free # 1-877-909-2782

Copies of today's documents are available through our Internet site (http://www.crtc.gc.ca) or by contacting the public examination room of any CRTC office. These documents are available in alternative format upon request.

Date Modified: 2004-11-25

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