Canadians choosing wireless phones over traditional landlines, CRTC says

OTTAWA – The CRTC says Canadians continue to abandon traditional landlines in favour of wireless.

The national telecom regulator says the number of residential phone subscribers decreased by 2.1 per cent to 11.9 million in 2012.

It says Canadians have dropped more than a million telephone lines in the last five years, while wireless subscriptions rose by 5.8 million in the same period.

The numbers are from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s annual communications monitoring report, which provides a snapshot of communications in Canada.

Among other things, it says a third of Canadians watch Internet television and 20 per cent stream radio over the Internet.

In 2012, the number of Canadian wireless subscribers grew by 1.8 per cent to 27.9 million, with an average of two wireless subscriptions per household.