CRTC releases market growth data

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has released its annual report on the communications industry, in which it says that the overall revenues for the telecoms/broadcasting sector rose by 3.3% in 2011 to CAD59.3 billion (USD60.1 billion), including CAD42.7 billion from telecoms services, an increase of 2.5%. Broadcasting turnover grew by 5.5% to CAD16.6 billion. The number of residential subscribers to fixed telephone services fell in 2011 by 2.7% to 12.2 million, the report said, adding that by the end of the year 78% of 13.4 million households in Canada had an internet subscription, while the percentage of households with download speeds of at least 5Mbps rose from 51% in 2010 to 54% in 2011. The CRTC said that there were 9.4 million subscribers in 2011 who took a bundle of two or more telecoms services from a single provider, a figure which near-doubled in four years.