Present-day telecommunications in Canada include telephone, radio, television, and internet usage. In the past,

telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...

s included

telegraphy Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

available through Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.

History

The history of

in Canada dates back to the

Province of Canada The Province of Canada (or the United Province of Canada or the United Canadas) was a British North America, British colony in North America from 1841 to 1867. Its formation reflected recommendations made by John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham ...

. While the first telegraph company was the Toronto, Hamilton and Niagara Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, founded in 1846, it was the

Montreal Telegraph Company The Montreal Telegraph Company was the first significant telegraph company in Canada. In 1847, early telegraph pioneer Orrin S. Wood was recruited to be president of the company, which rapidly established telegraph lines to Toronto and Quebec City ...

, controlled by

Hugh Allan Sir Hugh Allan (September 29, 1810 – December 9, 1882) was a Scottish-Canadian shipping magnate, financier and capitalist. By the time of his death, the Allan Shipping Line had become the largest privately owned shipping empire in the wor ...

and founded a year later, that dominated in Canada during the technology's early years. Following the 1852

Telegraph Act Telegraph Act is a stock short title which used to be used for legislation in the United Kingdom, relating to telegraphy. The Bill for an Act with this short title may have been known as a Telegraph Bill during its passage through Parliament. Tel ...

, Canada's first permanent transatlantic telegraph link was a submarine cable built in 1866 between

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

. Telegrams were sent through networks built by Canadian Pacific and Canadian National. In 1868 Montreal Telegraph began facing competition from the newly established Dominion Telegraph Company. 1880 saw the Great North Western Telegraph Company established to connect

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

and

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

but within a year it was taken over by

Western Union The Western Union Company is an American multinational financial services company, headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Founded in 1851 as the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company in Rochester, New York, the company chang ...

, leading briefly to that company's control of almost all telegraphy in Canada. In 1882, Canadian Pacific transmitted its first commercial telegram over telegraph lines they had erected alongside its tracks, breaking Western Union's monopoly. Great North Western Telegraph, facing bankruptcy, was taken over in 1915 by Canadian Northern. By the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Canadians communicated by telephone, more than any other country. In 1967 the CP and CN networks were merged to form CNCP Telecommunications. As of 1951, approximately 7000 messages were sent daily from the United States to Canada. An agreement with

required that U.S. company to route messages in a specified ratio of 3:1, with three telegraphic messages transmitted to Canadian National for every message transmitted to Canadian Pacific. The agreement was complicated by the fact that some Canadian destinations were served by only one of the two networks.

Fixed-line telephony

Telephones - fixed lines: total subscriptions: 13.926 million (2020) ::* Subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 36.9 (2020 est.) Telephones -

mobile cellular A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

: 36,093,021 (2020) ::* Subscriptions per 100 inhabitants: 95.63 (2020 est.)

Telephone system A telephone network is a telecommunications network that connects telephones, which allows telephone calls between two or more parties, as well as newer features such as fax and internet. The idea was revolutionized in the 1920s, as more and more ...

: (2019) ::* Domestic: Nearly 37 per 100 fixed-line and 96 per 100 mobile-cellular teledensity; domestic satellite system with about 300 earth stations (2020) ::* International: country code - +1; submarine cables provide links within the Americas and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

; satellite earth stations - 7 (5

Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (formerly INTEL-SAT, INTELSAT, Intelsat) is a multinational satellite services provider with corporate headquarters in Luxembourg and administrative headquarters in Tysons Corner, Virginia, United States. Originally formed as In ...

- 4 trans-

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

and 1 trans-

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, and is bounded by the continen ...

, and 2

Intersputnik The Intersputnik International Organization of Space Communications, commonly known as Intersputnik, is an international satellite communications services organization founded on 15 November 1971, in Moscow by the Soviet Union along with a group of ...

- (Atlantic Ocean region)

Call signs

ITU prefixes: Letter combinations available for use in Canada as the first two letters of a television or radio station's call sign are CF, CG, CH, CI, CJ, CK, CY, CZ, VA, VB, VC, VD, VE, VF, VG, VO, VX, VY, XJ, XK, XL, XM, XN and XO. Only CF, CH, CI, CJ and CK are currently in common use, although four radio stations in

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador St. John's is the capital and largest city of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. The city spans and is the easternmost city in North America ...

retained call letters beginning with VO when Newfoundland joined

Canadian Confederation Canadian Confederation (french: Confédération canadienne, link=no) was the process by which three British North American provinces, the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, were united into one federation called the Canada, Dom ...

in 1949. Stations owned by the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the government. ...

use CB through a special agreement with the government of

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. Some codes beginning with VE and VF are also in use to identify radio repeater transmitters.

Radio

As of 2016, there were over 1,100 radio stations and audio services broadcasting in Canada. Of these, 711 are private commercial radio stations. These commercial stations account for over three quarters of radio stations in Canada. The remainder of the radio stations are a mix of public broadcasters, such as

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

, as well as

campus A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a college campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls, student centers or dining halls, and park-like se ...

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

, and Aboriginal stations.

Television

As of 2018, 762 TV services were broadcasting in Canada. This includes both conventional television stations and

discretionary service A discretionary service is a Canadian specialty channel which, as defined by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, may be carried optionally by all subscription television providers. It replaces the previous category A ...

s. Cable and

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

services are available throughout Canada. The largest cable providers are

Bell Canada Bell Canada (commonly referred to as Bell) is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC (incumbent local exchange carrier) in t ...

Rogers Cable Rogers Cable Inc. is Canada's largest cable television service provider with about 2.25 million television customers, and over 930,000 Internet subscribers, primarily in Southern & Eastern Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. Ro ...

, Shaw Cable, Vidéotron, Telus and

Cogeco Cogeco Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications and media company. Its corporate offices are located at 1 Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, Quebec. The company is structured into three strategic business units (SBU); Cogeco Connexion, Breezeline ( ...

, while the two licensed satellite providers are Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct.

Internet

Bell,

Rogers Rogers may refer to: Places Canada *Rogers Pass (British Columbia) *Rogers Island (Nunavut) United States * Rogers, Arkansas, a city * Rogers, alternate name of Muroc, California, a former settlement * Rogers, Indiana, an unincorporated community ...

, Telus, and

Shaw Shaw may refer to: Places Australia *Shaw, Queensland Canada *Shaw Street, a street in Toronto England *Shaw, Berkshire, a village *Shaw, Greater Manchester, a location in the parish of Shaw and Crompton *Shaw, Swindon, a List of United Kingdom ...

are among the bigger ISPs in Canada. Depending on your location, Bell and Rogers would be the big internet service providers in Eastern provinces, while Shaw and Telus are the main players competing in western provinces. *

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s: there are more than 44 ISPs in Canada, including Beanfield,

, Cable Axion,

Cablevision Cablevision Systems Corporation was an American cable television company with systems serving areas surrounding New York City. It was the fifth-largest cable provider and ninth-largest television provider in the United States. Throughout its ex ...

(Canada), Chebucto Community Net,

, Colbanet, Craig Wireless,

Dery Telecom DERYtelecom is a cable television distributor Internet service provider and Phone in Canada based in Saguenay, Quebec. The company operates in 13 regions in Quebec in municipalities of 600 residents or less. As of 2019, the distributor had roughl ...

, Eastlink (company), Electronic Box, Everus Communications, Guest-tek, Information Gateway Services, Internet Access Solutions,

Internex Online Internex Online, usually known as io.org, was the first consumer dial-up ISP in Canada, formed by the merger of r-node and zooid BBS, two Bulletin board system and Usenet/uucp systems, in early 1993. At its peak, it had about 10,000 customers, an ...

Inukshuk Wireless Inukshuk Wireless Inc. is a joint venture of BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications, created in 2005 to establish a Canada-wide network for wireless Internet connectivity in 45 major cities and over 120 rural communities, throughout the ten Industry ...

Jet2.net Managed Network Systems Inc. (doing business as MNSi Telecom) is a Canadian Internet service provider (ISP) and phone provider located in Windsor, Ontario. Opened in 1995, it is the oldest ISP in the Windsor-London area, having started in Septemb ...

Look Communications Look Communications () was a telecommunication company that has been in liquidation from November 2009. It was a digital wireless cable, internet service, and web hosting provider. It was once linked to former crown corporation Teleglobe and Chine ...

, Managed Network Systems, Inc.,

Mountain Cablevision Mountain Cable was one of three cable television service providers for the city of Hamilton, Ontario and its surrounding area, specifically the Hamilton Mountain area and Haldimand County. Its operations were acquired by Shaw Communications in 200 ...

, National Capital FreeNet, Novus Entertainment, Ontera, Persona Communications,

Primus Canada Primus (Latin, 'first') may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Primus (DC Comics), a character in the Omega Men team * Primus (Marvel Comics), a character created by Arnim Zola * Primus, a character in the novel ''Stard ...

, Project Chapleau,

Qiniq Qiniq may refer to: * Qiniq (tribe), a historical Oghuz Turkic tribe *Qiniq (company) Qiniq, from the Inuktitut root word for "to search", is a Canadian company, which uses satellite and wireless communications technology to provide broadband ...

, Rally Internet,

Rogers Hi-Speed Internet Rogers Hi-Speed Internet is a broadband Internet service provider in Canada, owned by Rogers Communications. Rogers previously operated under the brand names @Home Network, Rogers@Home, Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet, WAVE, and Road Runner in Ne ...

Rose Media A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...

, Rush Communications Ltd., SaskTel, Seaside Communications,

Shaw Communications Shaw Communications Inc. is a Canadian telecommunications company which provides telephone, Internet, television, and mobile services. Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, Shaw provides home telecommunications services primarily in Alberta and Br ...

Source Cable Source Cable (formerly known as Southmount Cable Limited) is one of three main cable television service providers for the city of Hamilton, Ontario. The other two are Rogers Cable (in the former Mountain Cablevision / Shaw territory) and Cogeco ...

SSI Micro SSi Canada (formerly known as SSi Micro Ltd.) is a Canadian wireless broadband internet service provider primarily serving remote areas that lack terrestrial service options. SSi was established in 1990 by Jeffrey Philipp and is headquartered in Y ...

, TAO (collective), TekSavvy, Telus, Telus Internet, Vidéotron, Vmedia, Web Community Resource Networks,

Wireless Nomad Wireless Nomad (wirelessnomad.com) was a for-profit cooperative based in Toronto, Canada providing subscriber-owned home and business Internet access along with free Wi-Fi wireless Internet access and music to over a hundred Node (networking), nodes ...

YourLink Xplore Inc. is a Woodstock, New Brunswick-based rural internet service provider. It is the largest rural focused broadband service provider in Canada. History Xplore Inc. was founded in 2004 under the name Barrett Enterprises. In 2011, Barrett ...

Internet Exchange Points The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

: There are multiple

in Canada, the largest of which are in

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

and

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

. Most ISP's peer at one or more of these Exchanges, except for Bell Canada. The Toronto Internet Exchange ranks as one of the largest in the world. *

Country codes Country codes are short alphabetic or numeric geographical codes ( geocodes) developed to represent countries and dependent areas, for use in data processing and communications. Several different systems have been developed to do this. The term ...

.CA .ca is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Canada. The domain name registry that operates it is the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA). Registrants can register domains at the second level (e.g., ''example.ca'') ...

, CDN, 124 *Internet users: 33 million users *

Internet hosts A network host is a computer or other device connected to a computer network. A host may work as a Server (computing), server offering information resources, services, and applications to users or other hosts on the network. Hosts are assigned at ...

: 8.7 million (2012-2017) *Percentage of households with

Internet access Internet access is the ability of individuals and organizations to connect to the Internet using computer terminals, computers, and other devices; and to access services such as email and the World Wide Web. Internet access is sold by Internet ...

: 87(2016) *Total households with high speed connection: 67% (2014) *Total users of home online banking: 68% (2016)

Mobile networks

The three major mobile network operators are Rogers Wireless (10.6 million subscribers),

Bell Mobility Bell Mobility Inc. is a Canadian mobile network operator, wireless network operator and the division of Bell Canada which offers wireless services across Canada. It operates networks using LTE (telecommunication), LTE and Evolved HSPA, HSPA+ on i ...

(9.0 million) and

Telus Mobility Telus Mobility (normally typeset as TELUS Mobility) is a Canadian wireless network operator and a division of Telus Communications which sells wireless services in Canada on its numerous networks. It operates 5G, LTE and HSPA+ on its mainstre ...

(8.8 million), which have a combined 91% of market share.Number of mobile phone network subscribers 2017 Q3
- CWTA

Administration and Government

Federally, telecommunications are overseen by the

Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC; french: Conseil de la radiodiffusion et des télécommunications canadiennes, links=) is a public organization in Canada with mandate as a regulatory agency for broadcasti ...

(french: Conseil de la Radiodiffusion et des Télécommunications Canadiennes)–CRTC as outlined under the provisions of both the Telecommunications Act and Radiocommunication Acts. CRTC further works with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (formerly Industry Canada) on various technical aspects including: allocating frequencies and call signs, managing the broadcast spectrum, and regulating other technical issues such as interference with electronics equipment. As Canada comprises a part of the

North American Numbering Plan The North American Numbering Plan (NANP) is a telephone numbering plan for twenty-five regions in twenty countries, primarily in North America and the Caribbean. This group is historically known as World Zone 1 and has the international callin ...

for area codes, the

Canadian Numbering Administration Consortium The Canadian Numbering Administration Consortium is the corporation responsible for administering Canada's telecommunication numbering resources. The CNA is regulated by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). CNAC ...

within Canada is responsible for allocating and managing area codes in Canada.

References

External links

The Canadian Communications Foundation
– A History of Canadian Broadcasting

CRTC (Mobile, Phone, Internet, or free/paid TV) by location
Compare Internet & Phone Plans in Canada
– Free Online Comparison Tool {{DEFAULTSORT:Telecommunications In Canada