A new Statistics Canada study suggests that while many Canadians still rely on land-line telephone service, nearly two-thirds also rely on cellular phones to communicate.
Residential Telephone Service Survey conducted by Statistics Canada reported that by December 2006, about 90.5 per cent of households reported having land-line service, while 66.8 per cent reported owning at least one cellular phone.
Western provinces are seen to be leading the way in growth.
Alberta reported the highest cellphone usage rate among the provinces with 80 per cent of households reporting having cellular phone service.
Rates in New Brunswick and Quebec were found to be much lower with New Brunswick households reporting 57.5 per cent usage and Quebec with 57.9 households using cellphone services.
The proportion of households that rely only on cellular service remained nearly unchanged from the year before.
About five per cent of households only use cellular service compared to 4.8 per cent in December 2005.
Almost 10 per cent of Canadian households that reported not having land-line telephone service cited basic local monthly rates and installation charges that were too difficult to afford.
Last year's study reported that households in urban centres were more likely to rely on only cellular service and the trend was seen to be more prevalent within low-income households.
For the first time in the study, Canadians were asked about their use of two additional telecommunication technologies: cable telephone services and "voice over IP" services.
By December 2006, about 10.6 per cent of Canadian households reported using a cable telephone service or a voice over IP service, led by 13.5 per cent of Albertans and 13.2 per cent of Quebecers compared with a low of 4.9 per cent in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The survey also showed that 1.2 per cent of households did not have any telephone service at all, unchanged from the previous year.
With the growing popularity of cellphones, questions have been raised about the safety of being exposed to the radiofrequency (RF) energy they emit.
The RF electromagnetic energy generated by cellphones can penetrate the body but the depth of penetration and the amount of energy absorbed depends on many factors, such as how close the phone is held to the body and how strong the signal is.
However, unlike the ionizing radiation given off by X-ray machines, RF electromagnetic energy from cellphones and other devices cannot break chemical bonds and is unlikely to damage the body's genetic material.
With files from The Canadian Press
