Thank you, Mr Chair. I'm very pleased to be here.
Canada's wireless industry is comprised of a diverse range of competitors that all share a common goal: empowering more Canadians to use wireless to do more. Canadian consumer preferences have created our mobile-first world, where smartphones and tablets are the preferred choice to communicate, navigate, inform, shop, bank, work, collaborate, entertain and be entertained. Businesses rely on wireless to stay connected to their customers, employees, and partners, as well as to increase productivity. Both consumers and enterprises depend on the wireless industry to continue investing and innovating so they can maximize the value of their wireless experience.
Investing to deliver and enhance expansive mobile broadband service will inherently contribute to Canada’s economy and Canadian prosperity. It will also support many of the objectives identified by the committee as a focus for this consultation, including helping all Canadians, in all regions, maximize their contributions to the economy and assisting businesses in meeting their expansion, innovation, and prosperity goals. Indeed, few measures could better contribute to all the goals identified in the budget consultation than facilitating wireless network infrastructure investment.
Canadians are the fourth-highest consumers of wireless data in the world, and Canadian mobile data traffic is projected to increase by 600% over the next four years. Meeting this demand presents an opportunity to directly benefit all Canadians; however, the non-stop infrastructure investment required to do so also presents a significant challenge.
Total Canadian investment in wireless infrastructure in 2015 was $2.9 billion. The results of this investment are significant. Canada's wireless network infrastructure covers an area bigger than the land masses of France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and Spain combined. Throughout this massive service area, Canadians have access to average smartphone connection speeds that are more than 50% faster, on average, than in those five European countries—