Internet and e-commerce industry in Canada

Today we are talking about the country that occupies most of northern North America. The name of this country originally means “village” (translation from the word “kanta”). That is a country of a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as the head of state. Two languages are equally used in this country and both are official: English and French. Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russia. With its closest neighbor the USA Canada has not only mutual borders but the world's largest trading relationship as well. However, we are here to study the country’s IT and e-commerce infrastructure state.

Canada is definitely one of the world leaders in terms of the broadband penetration and IT infrastructure development. As for the January 2009 Canada ranks as the 12th country in the world for Internet usage, according to http://www.internetworldstats.com data. Thus the end of 2008 showed an enormous amount of Internet users in the country: 28.000.000 that made up 84.3% of the total population. This can be compared with the year 2000 statistic, when it was 12,700,000 or 40.3% users in the country. As for 2005, the growth was noticeable, and the amount of users that year exceeded 20 million making up 67,5%. So, the period of 2000-2008 reflected 120.5% growth. However, Canada’s Internet market share of 11.3% is far behind 88,7% in the US. Nevertheless this two are the only leaders in this region. 

It’s an interesting fact, almost a half of countries Internet users (48%) connect at least three times per day. As for the type of Internet connection preference, 53.6% of Canadians use high-speed connection, compared to 33.8% of those in the US. 

Canada occupies the 10th position among 30 most developed countries in respect of the Internet access speed and cost, as for the research conducted in 2007 by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). Average download speed in Canada is 7.6 Mbit per sec (compared to Japan that has the highest speed of 61.0 Mbit per sec and Greece that has the lowest speed of 1.0 Mbit per sec). As for the Internet access cost in Canada, it made up $2.39 per 1 Mb. This price can be compared to the cheapest Internet access in Japan - just $ 0.27 and to the most expensive of $ 60.01 in Mexico. The Canada’s Internet top-level domain or ccTLD is .ca. But it has the number of sub domains: .bc.ca, .mb.ca, .nb.ca, .n. ca, .ns.ca, .nt.ca, .nu.ca, .on.ca, .pe.ca, .qc.ca. Two year registration agreement in the zone of Canada’s ccTLD will cost just $99. It’s cheap enough compared to, for instance, Luxemburg’s cost of $270, but it’s still more expensive than in the USA, where registration in the zone of country’s domain will cost you just $17.5 or $35 (as for http://www.rwgusa.com data). 

Well, Canada has an Internet market that is very much attractive for users as well as for ISPs. Broadband service is driven by a government, aiming to establish in Canada the strongest information economy and make it an attractive country for investment. Cable modem and DSL services are reaching the highest level of penetration. The legal definition of broadband in Canada is 1.5 Mbit/s. However, over the recent years the competition between the major broadband Internet providers caused rapid growth in the volume of Internet services available to home users. Below the names of the main Canada Internet service providers, offering the variety of plans, are presented:

• Shaw - offers variety of Internet access speed: from 128 kbit/s to 25 Mbit/s
• Rogers Cable - 256 kbit/s to 10 or 18 Mbit/s
• Videotron - 128 kbit/s to 20, 30 or 50 Mbit/s
• Cogeco - 150 kbit/s to 16 Mbit/s
• Eastlink - 128 kbit/s to 15 Mbit/s
• Bell Internet - 500 kbit/s to 10 or 16 Mbit/s
• Telus - 28 kbit/s to 6 Mbit/s
• Sasktel - 64 kbit/s to 7 Mbit/s
• Colbanet - 800 kbit/s to 24 Mbit/s
• TekSavvy - 512 kbit/s to 5 Mbit/s
• ElectronicBox - 800 kbit/s to 5 Mbit/s
• Novus - 10 Mbit/s to 50 Mbit/s
• Velcom - 288 kbit/s to 64 Mbit/s

Bell Internet (formerly Bell Sympatico) is the largest DSL provider in Canada. Bell owns and maintains physical layer connectivity through a combination of optical fibre networks, DSLAM and Customer Premise Equipment. Several other DSL providers with a comparable network infrastructure instead use lines provided by Bell through a service called "Dry DSL". The predominant technology is ADSL while ADSL2+ is quickly emerging as the new standard. The other major operators that provide DSL and IPTV services are Sasktel (in Saskatchewan) and MTS (in Manitoba). Standard North American DOCSIS based equipment is used for Cable Internet offerings.

Thus, we found that Canada has an enormous number of active Web users and a variety of the operators that provide Canadians with mainly high quality Internet services. But, what about the Canadians’ online preferences? What sites they are likely to go? Actually, Canadians users are similar to English speaking countries users, especially the United States. Thus the majority of popular international web contents, like Google, Yahoo! and MSN, are applied to actively by the Canadians, according to comScore report. As for the social networks, Canadians prefer Facebook better than MySpace; Kijiji, eBay subsidiary acting as centralized network of online communities for posting local online classified advertisements, dominates compared to Craigslist, that is also appeared to be a centralized network of online communities, featuring free online classified advertisements. Interestingly enough but the situation in the USA is completely different: there people are to use MySpace rather than Facebook, and they prefer Craigslist to Kijiji. As the most popular native Canada’s sites comScore names Quebecor Media, Canoe.ca, CTVglobemedia which includes globeandmail.com and CTV.ca. These web contents maintain an extensive web presence.

Moreover Canada is the country that has the greatest number of file sharers per capita in the world, according the OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development).Thus the volume of file shares in Canada even exceeds file shares volume in the USA. 
The high penetration of broadband Internet access also provokes the growth in other industries, such as interactive and digital TV services and e-commerce. Canada is also considered to be one of the world leaders in e-commerce infrastructure. It’s important that the government actively encourages initiatives, including the development of digital and broadband networks, to develop high-speed access throughout the country suitable for wireless and Internet applications. 

Canadians are very active users of the Internet and, as the result, e-commerce applicants. All the spheres of electronic commerce reached the high level of advancement, that’s why Canada managed to become the world leader in this area. According to eMarcet.com, almost 40% of online buyers visit more than one online store before finalizing a purchase, and 37% use a search engine to find a retailer. For 60% of online buyers consumer reviews were the most trust information source. And only 31% trust newspapers or magazines most. More than two-thirds of Canadian Internet users like to sell online, but only 53% are willingly purchasing online. 

Canadians are either on par or ahead of their US peers in purchasing electronics, travel and event tickets online, according to eMarket statistics. Though, Canadians are left behind by the USA in the purchasing of clothing, music and videos, gifts and toys.

As for the 2007 research, about half of Canadian retail firms had their Web sites, compared to the 42% of 2005, and every year the volume is increasing. The percentage is even higher among companies with 100 employees or more, 88% of these firms have a Web site.

It’s obvious that a great amount of e-commerce providers exist in Canada. We’ll just name some of them. So below there is a brief list of the companies supply users with e-commerce and e-business solutions. 

• The Plastics Exchange – a real-time marketplace for anonymously buying and selling prime and wide spec commodity grade plastic resins in truckloads and railcars with fully integrated credit and logistics( Chicago , Illinois)

• TecMarGroup - a company that develops, implements and manages complete marketing plans and deliverables for manufacturing companies. With significant experience in the engineering, plastics and telecommunications sectors, it works directly with, and support each clients’ business development and sales activities. Specific industry experiences relate to hot runners, mouldmaking, moulding, auxilliary equipment, automation and injection machines (Georgetown, Ontario)

• IQMS - the company’s latest product EnterpriseIQ, rooted in plastic, is the innovative choice with unsurpassed capabilities for injection, blow molding, thermoforming, extrusion and compounding. From manufacturing to financial needs, across one plant or across the globe. (Paso Robles , California)

• Cyframe - fully integrated ERP software for the plastic industry. Total systems including SPC and eCommerce utilities that Track & Measure operations to: Improve Productivity, Reduce Overhead, Improve Response Time & Customer Service with specific versions for Injection, Blow Molding, Extrusion, and Film & Converting (Montreal, Quebec )

• Polysort LLC - a web site portal for the plastics industry offering online advertising along with web site development and search engine optimization services (Akron , Ohio)

• Omnexus - company that deals with online purchasing of plastics-related products (France, Canada)

• Chematch.com - global internet marketplace for buying, selling and auctioning bulk commodity chemicals, polymers, feedstocks and fuel products; ensures anonymity, neutrality and security (Houston, Texas)

• e-Xact Transactions – considered to be the best Canada’s e-merchant solution for those businesses that are to be conducted in Canadian currency, or Canadian and US currency. Company offers settlement for Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, provides with good merchant reporting tools, responsive customer service, and a reliable payment gateway all make e-Xact a solid choice. 

• Paradata - one of the first payment providers in Canada. Its pricing makes Paradata the perfect choice for lower volume (under 100 tx per month) web merchants looking to process transactions in Canadian Currency only.  

• Verisign Payflow - a big, stable, public traded company, a solid Internet brand name. Verisign scooped up Cybercash during the crash and after a difficult transition; they now offer a top notch service. Pricing is reasonable, moreover company offers the advantage of superior fraud screening services. Pricing is optimised for US customers but transactions can be provided in all of the major international currencies.

• WorldPay – e-commerce solution that provides good track record and better pricing than Verisign does. Worldpay is a viable choice for merchants aiming to conduct business in multiple currencies.

Well, Canada managed to build a solid broadband market, ensuring e-commerce progress as well. It became one of the world leaders in the sphere of IT and e-commerce industry, reaching the highest levels of Internet penetration and e-commerce development. The country is obviously not to draw back, absorbing all the IT novelties of the modern word and advancing the quality of services it offers.