Canadians Throwing Away Landlines for Skype or Cell Phones

"About 12 per cent of 1,000 people polled by technology research firm IDC Canada said they had "cut the cord," a four-per-cent increase from the previous survey. Moreover, the number of people thinking about getting rid of their landline saw a "staggering" increase, to 66 per cent from 52 per cent."

About 25% have done this in the USA. Among my closest 50 friends or so in Northwest Florida, 75% have a smart phone (most are Droid or iPhone) and also are using Skype, Rebtel, Gizmo/Google, Vonage, NetTalk, or other VoIP service at home or small business office. This is partly because I am constantly telling them the facts of what is possible in telecommunications to help them meet their life goals.

But overall in Canada, for example, are they switching to VoIP or regular cell phone? Long-distance alternatives such as internet-based calling service Skype are also playing a role, the company added. People are tired of paying for a landline and a cell phone, 

"Bell Canada, the country's largest phone company, lost more than 99,000 landline customers in its most recent quarter while Telus, the No. 2 provider, lost about 58,000."

"New wireless-only companies in Canada such as Wind Mobile, Mobilicity and Public Mobile, all of which launched in the past few months, are likely to accelerate things even more ..."

Canada has been known for outrageously expensive cell phone service, with constant roaming, no unlimited domestic packages, so I am looking forward to our company doing more business with Canadian companies to help them and their clients bring down these costs legally. I hope you can, too.

Listen to a Bending the Needle podcast where Martyn Davies interviews Bill Tam of eqo. Bill shares the Canadian lament re: telecom costs, especially with cell phones.


Twitter friend and industry SMB @jkl5group helped me with some of the information for this blog post was gained from http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/06/01/wireless-cellphone-substitution.html?ref=rss and other sources, both primary and secondary.

*Women involved in IP communications are invited to join the informal Facebook women in VoIP group whose aim is simply to help companies develop business via the women among them and to share our talents in marketing, software development and more.