Dial-up and high-speed Internet entering mainstream for Canadians : Decima poll

More Canadians now have access to the Internet at home than work, according to preliminary results of a nation-wide survey done for Decima Publishing Inc by its affiliate Decima Research Inc. The January poll of 2007 Canadians found all but 580 have access to a PC at either work or home. Of those with a computer, 82.4 per cent reported having Internet access at home, compared to 77.8 per cent at work. The final numbers are still being crunched, but the numbers suggest that the Internet – and particularly high-speed Internet – is reaching the mainstream consciousness of Canadian consumers. Considering that cable modems and DSL have only been gradually rolled out in major markets over the past three years, the consumer take-up has outstripped most other new technologies. The Decima poll found that 37.9 per cent of Internet households subscribe to a high-speed service. Of those that don’t, 43 per cent said they were very or somewhat likely to upgrade within the next 12 months. The survey also found that cablecos and ILECs are neck-in-neck in the race to deliver Internet access to Canadians. Some 22.3 per cent of Internet users said they receive their service from either Bell Sympatico or another telco, compared to 23.2 per cent who said they subscribe to a cable modem service from Rogers (8%), Shaw (6.2%), Vidéotron (6.3%) and other cablecos (2.7%). ISPs rank high on quality scale When asked to rate the overall quality of Internet service they receive, most customers are quite happy. Given a scale of 0 (meaning completely dissatisfied) to10 (meaning very satisfied), the majority of respondents placed their server in the higher bracket. Forty-two per cent gave a grade of 7 or 8. Over 16 per cent gave top marks, saying they were very satisfied. They were less generous when it came to assessing the technology currently available. Using a similar 0-to-10 scale, 58 per cent placed it in the four to seven range. Nearly 40 per cent of respondents believe it will be more than two years before the quality of video transmissions on the Internet matches that of television. Almost as many, 37.6 per cent, say it should occur within a year or two. Eighteen per cent think it will take less than a year while 1.1 per cent say the quality is already equal. The Decima poll is considered accurate, depending on the question asked, with a variance of less than +/- five percentage points, 19 times out of 20. For details on the streaming video results from the Decima poll, see the March 8 issue of Canadian NEW MEDIA. Source: Decima Research Omnibus Poll, January/01

Dial-up and high-speed Internet entering mainstream for Canadians : Decima poll

News | 03/12/2001 5:00 am EST

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