Digital Households in Canada

Abstract

Recent technological advances, particularly in digitization, continue to lead to convergence of products, services, delivery channels and, indeed, entire industries. These developments occur in parallel with more liberalized policy and regulatory environments in most of the developed world. Leaps in telecommunications and computing especially contributed to the arrival of the Information Highway, which made the headlines extensively in the ‘90s, and heralded the entry into the Information Society. Today, in Canada this has given rise to the connectedness agenda. All these developments are predicated on the notion that “Information and its manipulation through communications networks and computers is becoming a key strategic resource that determines the competitiveness of firms and nations” (IHAC 1997, p.5). Harnessing the potential of the new technologies is widely believed to unleash a wave of creativity, which will afford businesses, governments and citizens tremendous opportunities. Innovative applications — some foreseeable, others yet unimaginable — based on state-of-the-art infrastructure, will trigger unprecedented interaction across and within sectors which “...will determine the wealth of nations and the quality of life of citizens” (OECD 1998, p.3).