In 2011, 2 Million Canadians Will Have Chosen To Ditch Their Land-Lines
According to a new report by The Convergence Consulting Group, by the end of 2011, one in seven households will have abandoned their land-line in favour of a mobile phone. The report, assessing the state of wireless technology in Canada from 2009-2014, found that ~2 million Canadians will rely solely on cellular technology by the end of this year, due to increased flexibility and monetary savings.
Brahm Eiley, co-founder of Convergence, was quoted by the CBC, “This is happening because prices have come down so radically. So in effect, it's cheaper to have a wireless phone than it is to have a wireline phone.”
According to Eiley, it is not due solely to cheaper voice plan rates my the major telcoms. “New players like Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile, which have all entered the market over the last two years, have also added "all-you-can-eat" voice plans. We're actually seeing an acceleration of wireless substitution in 2011, which we did not see previously in Canada.”
The Convergence report projects an increase to 26% of households being cellular only by the end of 2014, up from 8.9% in 2009. The results however, conflict with the 2010 annual communications monitoring report by the CRTC, where it was found the average mobile phone bill dropped by only $1 from 2009 to 2010. The CRTC report however, does not include 2011 data, nor does it touch on whether or not the price could be reflective of decreasing voice plans buoyed by increasing data plan subscriptions.
