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It's Your Turn
Current Consultations
Consultations on Services Trade Negotiations
Online Questionnaire for Canadian Businesses
Telecommunications Services
Background Information
From 1998 to 2002, total revenue of Canada's telecommunications service providers grew at an average annual rate of 3.5%. Most of the increase in total revenue since 1998 stems from growth in the wireless segment, which increased at an average annual rate of 13.3%1. The telecommunications industry has seen its share of Canada's GDP steadily increase in the last few years. In 2002, for example, it contributed approximately 2.3% to the total Canadian GDP and produced $23.1 billion of value added, an 0.5% increase over the previous year. The total annual operating revenue for the telecommunications service providers was $32.7 billion in 2002.
In 2002, the telecommunications service providers employed 89,745 people. The wireline carriers were the largest employers in the industry with 72,338 employees overall, compared to wireless service providers (13,624), and the satellite and resellers sector (3,783). Capital expenditures for the same year were estimated at $5.7 billion for the communications industry as a whole.
Definition of sector in the GATS
The classification system that is used in the GATS by most WTO members, divides Telecommunication Services into the following sixteen categories:
- Telecommunications services;
- Voice telephone services;
- Packet-switched data transmission services;
- Circuit-switched data transmission services;
- Telex services;
- Telegraph services;
- Facsimile services;
- Private leased circuit services;
- Electronic mail;
- Voice mail;
- On-line information and data base retrieval;
- Electronic data interchange (EDI);
- Enhanced/value-added facsimile services, incl. store and forward, store and retrieve;
- Code and protocol conversion;
- On-line information and/or data processing (incl. transaction processing);
- Other?
What We Heard in Previous Consultations
Priority Markets
Priority export markets identified in past consultations have included the following:
- Argentina
- Australia
- Hong Kong
- Israel
- Japan
- Korea
- Mexico
- New Zealand
- Panama
- Switzerland
- Taiwan
- United States
- European Community
Market Access Barriers
Obstacles to trade identified in past consultations have included the following:
Korea maintains foreign ownership restrictions and limits the number of licences issued to provide telecommunications services. Mexico prohibits the resale of telecommunications services and does not permit VoIP. China maintains restrictions on foreign equity participation and geographical limitations on facilities-based international carrier competition. In some markets, there is a lack of transparency, predictability and timeliness when awarding operating permits and licences.
Go directly to the Questionnaire.
1. The revenues generated by the wireline incumbents and competitors segments, as well as the resellers, satellite and other market segments, have been relatively stagnant since 1998, and in some cases these segments have witnessed small declines.
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