Computer Communications and the Mass Market in Canada

Dean Tudor is a journalism professor at the Ryerson Polytechnical
Institute and founding editor of the CBRA.

The importance of this study rests on the premise that the driving force of the much-heralded information age is computer-communications technology, a technology which is destined to bring about revolutionary changes to all aspects of society and human endeavour. For these changes to occur properly in Canada, widespread usage of the technology must be achieved. This will require the development of a mass market. What is unclear is how such a mass market can develop, who will participate, under what terms and for whose benefit. What is clear, if the argument of this document is accepted, is that government must play the key role in balancing the interplay between the forces of competition and government intervention. (Foreword, pp. vii-viii)

Topics in this survey include a literature survey, a demand analysis with a Lancaster model, a look at the supply determinants of hardware, pricing, and packaging, the market development potential, and the various government policies and subsidies.

In any area of communications with computers, services and applications are most desirable: users must know what is in the system and how they can use it. These are paramount; the rest are subsidiary. This is an important study; it offers no new conclusions, but it has extensive documentation to prove what is already common knowledge.