Broadband: High-speed access to the Internet

Canadians have emerged as global leaders in the adoption of broadband Internet technologies, with almost one-half of regular home users and the majority of business Internet users connecting using broadband, according to the first comprehensive study of high-speed Internet access.

In 2001, over 2.8 million households subscribed to the Internet using broadband. These accounted for 49% of all Canadian households regularly using the Internet from home.

In addition, broadband has emerged as a standard business tool among large enterprises throughout the private sector, although the pattern among smaller firms is less consistent.

Overall, take-up rates in the household and business environments place Canada among the world's leaders in broadband use, ranking second only to South Korea among OECD countries on a per capita basis.

This study uses data from five Statistics Canada surveys and Industry Canada's Broadband for rural and northern development pilot program to detail broadband use by households and industry, as well as the supply and availability of broadband technologies.

In terms of households, broadband use increases from east to west. Six out of 10 households (61%) in British Columbia regularly using the Internet at home were connected using broadband. This compares with only 39% of households in the Atlantic provinces.

For the first time in 2002, the majority (58%) of businesses in the private sector accessing the Internet used broadband. However, its use is occurring unevenly. About 84% of large firms using the Internet had high-speed access, compared with 71% of medium-size firms and 56% of small firms, which were still very much in the process of developing broadband use.

Use among enterprises varied with firm size as well as type of industry. As with Internet use generally, information and cultural industries, with a penetration rate of 86%, were leaders in broadband penetration in 2002. Others included utilities (80%), finance and insurance (77%) and professional, scientific and technical services (75%). Ranking lowest were transportation and warehousing (40%) and the forestry sector (34%).

During the 1990s, dial-up Internet access using a telephone line and standard modem developed as the first widespread method of Internet access. Since then, broadband technologies have surged in popularity.

Broadband Internet access is typically delivered using cable or digital subscriber line (DSL) systems. In business environments, high capacity services such as T1 lines are sometimes used.

In recent years, cable operators and telecommunications services providers have made substantial investments to offer broadband services. For example, cable operators have replaced existing coaxial infrastructure designed for one-way delivery of television programming with upgraded hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) networks necessary for broadband.

As of July 2003, 86% of the Canadian population lived in communities where broadband access by cable or DSL networks was available. However, 72% of Canadian communities, mainly those in rural or remote areas, do not yet have broadband services available.

The low population densities of these areas, coupled with high costs of building broadband infrastructure over long distances, are the main barriers to broadband deployment.

A variety of government and private initiatives are already underway in efforts to expand access. Many of these initiatives depend on one or a combination of two broad underlying strategies: infrastructure support using public funds, and aggregate demand among community stakeholders.

The new paper in the Connectedness series, High-speed on the information highway: Broadband in Canada, no. 10 (56F0004MIE2003010, free) is now available on Statistics Canada's website. From the Our products and services page, under Browse our Internet publications, choose Free, then Communications.

For more information, or to enquire about the concepts, methods, or data quality of this release, contact Ben Veenhof (613-951-5067) or Bryan van Tol (613-951-6663), Science, Innovation and Electronic Information Division.