Thought that might get your attention, but let us face the fact that in Canada we pay a ludicrous amount of money for our telecommunication (i.e. Telephone, Internet and Cable) needs.
That is the Average Folks Many people pay much more.
Where is my proof? Luckily our friends at the CRTC have compiled data on this very area in their Communications Monitoring Report 2015: Canada’s Communications System: An Overview for Citizens, Consumers, and Creators , and their research is quite extensive. This report is quite extensive, but luckily they also have compiled some really nice infographics, for folks like me who don’t like to read really long reports.
Aren’t those numbers staggering to you? The average consumer pays $203.04 a month to stay in touch with the world?
The other interesting data in the report point out how things are changing in that:
For the first time wireless overtakes wireline in Canadian household subscriptions:
- 20.4% wireless only vs 14.4% wireline only
Not that surprising, given most of the folks I know under the age of 40, only have a Wireless phone number or don’t have a traditional Home Phone (i.e. Voice over IP or something similar).
Smart Phones and Young Folks
Remember young folks are addicted to Smart Phones (most of them at least). According to Mobile World, the graphic on the left is true for 16-24 year olds.
In fact 71% of them can’t live without their Smart Phone? Wonder how much their bills cost? The data wasn’t that surprising to me given how my kids are attached to their phones.
How old are the cord cutters out there? That is mentioned as well:
Number of hours Canadians watched traditional television in 2014:
- Children 2-11 years old: 20.6 hours
- 18-34 years old: 20.6 hours
- 65 + years old: 41.8 hours
Seems like traditional TV might be dying off in Canada too?
The big three of Telus, Bell and Rogers have little competition aside from trying to steal each others customers (Ask for the Customer Retention group if you call for a discount), they won’t be lowering these rates any time soon.
I don’t even want to admit what I pay. $100 for internet (top tier rural high-speed) and $200 for my wife’s and my phone. That’s for unlimited everything and a boat load of data. No home phone, no TV. Could probably scrape the cell bill down a little but we have 12 gigs of data between us and occasionally go over. Haven’t had a home phone for almost 8 years. Cutting cable was a no brainer because neither watches live sports. Everything else is available instantly and can be streamed to any device or tv in the house. Yay internet…