We provide wireless service to tens of thousands of Canadians, and we anticipate growing our customer base exponentially as we roll out our offering to other cities and regions of the country. We currently have 1,500 employees in Canada. We've spent close to $1 billion and we aren't even close to finished.
Let me be direct: WIND is a proudly Canadian company. It has met all Canadian ownership and control requirements. To emphasize the point, the Governor in Council made no special exception for WIND, and it did not waive any restrictions.
Cabinet looked at our structure and quite rightly came to a different conclusion from that reached by the CRTC. It varied the CRTC decisions, as the Telecommunications Act has always permitted it to do.
Canada's wireless sector has been under-served by the three dominant wireless providers, and it is sorely in need of greater competition. Canada has less than 70% penetration in wireless, which according to the OECD put it 30th of 30 OECD countries--dead last. There may be arguments about the details of the OECD findings, but they're generally consistent with the findings of a number of other well-respected institutions, including Harvard's Berkman Center, and a number of studies conducted in Canada.
At a minimum, the OECD's statistics are directionally correct and they suggest a significant structural problem. The low penetration of wireless in Canada results from unnecessarily high prices, a function of the virtual oligopoly of the big three, which has created opportunity for companies like mine.
The entrenched, hugely capitalized big three enjoy some of the highest profit margins in the business world, earned through practices that limit competition and harm consumers, including long-term contracts with unreasonably high rates; punitive early termination fees; and fees for fictitious network services, such as system access fees and, more recently, Rogers' regulatory recovery fee.
Obviously the lack of real competition has a significant impact on costs for consumers and businesses and deeply important follow-on consequences for innovation and productivity in the Canadian economy. Clearly, competition is needed.
The battle has just begun. With its innovative online social networking community, WIND is listening to what Canadian consumers want from a wireless carrier and it is providing it to them: no contracts, identical plans available for pre- and post-paid customers, and simple and transparent plans offering numerous features.
We are connected to our communities, not only through our networks but through what we feel is our social responsibility. For example, following the CRTC decision we put our employees to work in their communities performing random acts of kindness for complete strangers. We are committed to continuing to build on our sense of corporate social responsibility and to giving back to the communities we serve.
It has been a good beginning, but we're only at the start of the long road. That is why we're here today to speak to Canada's foreign ownership rules.
I'll turn the floor over to my colleague Simon Lockie, who will now address that topic.