Pitfalls of Internet Access Statistics

It’s hard to find good statistics on the percentage of Canadians with access to the Internet. First, Statistics Canada changed the way they measure this metric in the last few years, making prior year data incomparable (It used to be by household if memory serves). Second: define “Internet access”; do web-enabled cellphones count? Do Blackberries? What about access in public places like Internet cafés, public libraries and schools?

Truth is, measuring how many Canadians have access to the Internet is more complicated than it used to be. It gets worse if you are trying to use that statistic to support a web-service proposal. For example, you probably won’t use your cellphone to fill-out an online form (i.e. an application for a government service or program). But you might use it to check the weather (Environment Canada). This doesn’t mean that cellphones have no value as a channel; it just means they serve a different purpose. A good example would be the ice status updates for the Rideau Canal that the NCC sends out: you receive these on your cellphone. The Internet used to be considered a single channel because most people would use it from a PC at home, but the modern truth is, it’s not, it’s many channels with different uses and different potentials for service delivery.

Another aspect to take into consideration is from where a user is accessing the Internet. Organisations have policies on what type of sites you can visit and when or if you can use the Internet connection provided to you by your employer for personal purposes. There are also the issues of security and privacy: I wouldn’t do online banking from an Internet Café and I doubt many people are installing quicktax in their cubicle and e-filing from work.

So how do you gauge the number or proportion of potential users for an online service, or the potential or predicted growth of such services?

Hard to do. The percentage of the population with access to the Internet is still rising, but likely the speed (% change from year to year) of this growth is slowing. I’d estimate that most gains now occur in rural areas as coverage expands (as service becomes available) and in the elder segments of the population, possibly also in the segments with lower incomes or education, as the prices of computers go down and the Internet becomes more of a commodity. Now this is all nice and interesting, but bottom line is, most people who wanted to get on the Internet probably have done so by now if they could.

As for potential market for a new service, you have to define how your online service will be accessed. It might be erroneous to include those who only have access to the Internet at work or via cellphone if the service you are considering is more along the lines of an application than a simple webpage with information on it. The opposite side of the coin is also true. You don’t want to double count (or more) the number of users who might have access to your service: i.e. those who possess a web-enabled cellphone and Internet access at home and at the office, etc.

Finally, just because some percentage of the population has the right type of access to the Internet (let’s say at home), it doesn’t automatically mean that they are potential users of your service: age and eligibility are two criteria I can think of off the bat that would rule out a number of potential users.