CRTC report shows cost of cable, telecom services increasing

The average Canadian saw their monthly bill for things like cable TV, internet access and cellphones increase 3.2 per cent last year, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said Thursday.

The total average monthly bill for communications services like the ones mentioned above was $191 last year. That's up from $185 the year before, the telecom regulator said.

Part of the increase in costs is attributed to the fact that Canadians are using more data on their wireless plans, and signing up for faster, better internet access, the CRTC says.

But the cost for some of those services is going up faster than others — and some things are actually getting cheaper.

The average bill for cable or satellite television went up by $1.54 per month to $53.56. That's an increase of just under  three per cent. Cellphone bills, meanwhile, increased by an average of $1.91 a month to $69.33. That's an increase of just over 2.8 per cent.

Most spending on mobile

Internet access costs increased by more than anything else, up by $4.42 or more than 14 per cent to an average of $35.37 a month. But spending on landline telephone service actually decreased by $2.01 to $32.85 per month. That's a drop of almost six per cent.

For comparison purposes, the most up-to-date figures show Canada's overall inflation rate is at 2.1 per cent. It's been consistently above the two per cent level since April, after spending the first three months of the year between one and two per cent.

Beyond the averages, Canadians spent more on mobile wireless services than any other communications service (36 per cent), followed by home television service (28 per cent), internet service (19 per cent), and home telephone service (17 per cent).

All that spending helped boost revenues in the industry to $61.9 billion in 2013, a 1.9 per cent increase from $60.8 billion the year before.