Official site of the City of Ottawa

Broadband Plan

Current Situation

The Growth of Internet and Broadband Communications

The total Canadian residential market for broadband Internet has been growing at one of the highest rates in the world. As of last year Canada ranked fifth in the world for broadband penetration.¹³

The total number of households using the Internet in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal,¹⁴ and overall Internet penetration in Canada is illustrated in Table 3 and Table 4 respectively. As of the year 2000 Ottawa had the highest Internet penetration rate of total households of all of the major centres in Canada at 65.2%. By comparison, Toronto had a penetration rate of 57.9% and Montreal's rate was 46.6%. These percentages are based on Internet users only and do not provide a breakdown between dial-up and broadband connectivity. However, it is believed that the majority of Internet users today are connected by their phone lines via a dialup connection. This type of connection is certainly not broadband by any definition.

Table 3: Percentage of Households Using the Internet, 2000¹⁵

In September 2002, eMarketer estimated that 14.9 million individuals were using the Internet in Canada. According to their new forecast, the number of Internet users in the country will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 13.9 percent through 2004. eMarketer estimates that the Canadian Internet user population will reach 17.8 million by 2003 and 21.4 million by 2004.

Table 4: Internet Penetration (Users) in Canada¹⁶

As shown in Table 5, the total number of broadband customers roughly doubled between 2000 and 2001, as reported by Kinetic Strategies.

Table 5: Broadband Customer Penetration in the Canadian Market¹⁷

The total number of broadband subscribers, people who use broadband, in the City of Ottawa is unavailable; however it is estimated that over 290,000¹⁸ Ottawa households have the option of broadband service as of 2002¹⁹. Broadband accessibility and its limits are discussed in detail in the next section of this document.

Statistics Canada reported that an estimated 2.2 million households spent almost $2 billion shopping on the Internet in 2001, according to the electronic commerce component of the Household Internet Use Survey. These households placed 13.4 million orders over the Internet from various locations. This was up significantly from 2000 when 1.5 million households spent $1.5 billion.

Although Internet usage does not imply broadband usage, this statistical information indicates that the potential demand for broadband is growing with the increase in Internet usage, and that Canadians are becoming more sophisticated and confident users of online services.

Table 6: Growth in Cable Access to the Internet in Canada²⁰

The above indicates that the cable industry has been aggressively building service into communities across the country, particularly smaller communities. Although Rogers Communications in Ottawa has not identified a specific roll out strategy for connecting up all of Ottawa's rural villages, the company is aware of the demand. ORCnet is aggregating demand in rural Ottawa and has identified that Rogers may expand their service into certain villages in the future.

Figure 2: DSL Service Growth in Canada²¹

Although Figure 2 illustrates significant growth expectations for DSL service in Canada, this service, with its limitations in distance, will mostly be confined to areas in and around large urban centres.

The City is forecasted to grow from a population of 813,000 in 2002 to 1,011,800 in 2011. The rural population is projected to grow from 82,000 in 2002 to 97,000 in 2011²². The technologies that will address most of the rural market will be a combination of cable modems, DSL, wireless and 2-way satellite. A backbone of fibre optic cable provided primarily by Telecom Ottawa will also be provided.

¹³ Point Topic Ltd DSL Worldwide Retail Directory Edition 6 Oct 2002.
¹⁴ Households includes apartments.
¹⁵ WD&A Inc. 2002
¹⁶ WD&A Inc. 2002
¹⁷ WD&A Inc. 2002
¹⁸ Stats Canada-The Daily-Sept 3 2002. Homes with Access to the Internet by Cable is the number of homes that could get cable Internet services should they choose to purchase those services. Subscribers to the Internet by cable is the number of homes actually purchasing cable based Internet service. Note that the totals shown here do not correspond exactly with those in Table 5 as the data comes from different sources and was likely collected at different times during the year.
¹⁹ The "option of broadband service" means that the service is available should the resident choose to purchase it.
²⁰ Stats Canada-The Daily-Sept 3 2002. Homes with Access to the Internet by Cable is the number of homes that could get cable Internet services should they choose to purchase those services. Subscribers to the Internet by cable is the number of homes actually purchasing cable based Internet service. Note that the totals shown here do not correspond exactly with those in Table 5 as the data comes from different sources and was likely collected at different times during the year.
²¹ Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, October 2001
²² City of Ottawa estimates, 2002

Next: Current Availability of Broadband Access Throughout Ottawa