Cell phone-only households solidify presence in Canada

The number of Canadian households only using cell phone service has more than doubled to 615,000 in the last two years, according to recently released figures from Statistics Canada’s Residential Telephone Service Survey. On a national basis, nearly 5% of households have dropped their landline service altogether in favour of a wireless service provided by any one of the cell phone operators in the country. This level compares to 1.9% of wireless-only Canadian households in the middle of 2003. Alberta and British Columbia lead the way in wireless-only households. BC has experienced the greatest growth in cell phone-only homes, more than tripling from mid-2003 levels to approximately 7.1% at the end of 2005. Alberta wasn’t too far behind with 5.8% of households being wireless only, more than doubling the penetration rate from 18 months earlier. As the two western most provinces had the highest level of wireless-only households, it should come as no surprise that Vancouver and Calgary had the greatest cell phone-only home penetration at 9.6% and 6.4% respectively. However, Montreal tied with Calgary for second place and this should be considered something of a surprise. The province of Quebec has generally had lower wireless penetration rates than other regions of the country. While households in large urban centres are the most likely to have only a cell phone, lower-income homes are nearly more than twice as likely to be wireless only compared to households with higher incomes. "The survey showed that 7.7% of households that were below Statistics Canada’s low-income cutoff (LICO) had only a cell phone, nearly double the proportion of 4.1% of households above the LICO," reads the April 5 issue of StatsCan’s The Daily news briefing service. Wireless-only homes in Canada have been slow to catch on due to many factors such as price, quality of service, wireline telephony affordability and lack of number portability for mobile numbers. But many expect this to change once wireless number portability is implemented in the country, currently scheduled for March 2007.

Cell phone-only households solidify presence in Canada

News | April 19, 2006

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