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Last time around, our Telus users saw the fastest average download speeds in Canada. However, in this report, there is no statistically significant difference between the overall download speeds seen by our Bell and Telus users. While both operators' scores have improved notably, Bell users reported the greatest boost of 9.3 Mbps (13.3%), compared to a 6.9 Mbps (9.4%) rise seen by our Telus users. As a result, both operators are joint winners of the Download Speed Experience award with a score of around 80 Mbps, on average — at least 34.9% faster than Rogers' score of 58.7 Mbps.
Canada's 4G Availability has improved across the board. Our Bell users reported an upswing of 1.6 percentage points, while those on Telus and Rogers saw an increase of 1.1 points and 0.8 points, respectively. With these increases, all three operators scored above 93%. All three operators were very close, but Bell and Rogers remain the joint winners of the 4G Availability award.
Similar to 4G Availability, we see a small difference between the three operators' scores on 4G Coverage Experience. Once again, Bell and Telus jointly win the 4G Coverage Experience award with identical scores of 9.7 points (out of 10), while Rogers follows closely with 8.7 points. 4G Coverage Experience analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
In 2021, Telus was a joint winner for the Games Experience award across both the February and August reports. But in the current report, Telus is the outright winner with a score of 72.3 points (out of 100) — 2-2.5 points ahead of Bell and Rogers, which are statistically tied for second place. Despite previous joint winner Rogers improving by one point since our last report Telus surged ahead by 3.5 points to take the outright win. This change was triggered by a 3.5 points improvement observed by our Telus users compared to a single-point improvement reported by our users on the previous joint winner Rogers' network.
Telus once again leads in the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — on mobile apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger. The operator wins the Voice App Experience award with 79 points (out of 100) — 1.1 points to 1.5 points ahead of Bell and Rogers. These scores mean that all three operators placed in the Acceptable (74<80) Voice App Experience category. Telus also held onto the Video Experience award with a score of 70.4 points that placed it in the Very Good category (65<75), alongside Bell and Rogers.
Opensignal’s latest report shows that Telus remains the dominant operator in Canada when it comes to overall mobile network experience across all technologies. Out of the seven awards for the taking, Telus wins four awards outright and jointly wins a further two. The differences, compared to the previous report, are that Telus is now the outright winner of the Games Experience award, and it now shares the top spot for Download Speed Experience alongside Bell. It is noteworthy that even though Bell and Telus' Download Speed Experience scores are identical, Telus is the leader of the pack when it comes to Opensignal’s experiential awards — Games Experience, Video Experience and Voice App Experience. This highlights that while download speeds are important, they cannot be used to infer a user's quality of experience when using over-the-top (OTT) voice services, and while streaming videos or playing multiplayer mobile games connected to mobile networks.
While 5G may be the critical area of focus for Canadian operators, 4G continues to play a vital role because that's the network consumers spend most of their time connected to. To examine the 5G experience in detail, Opensignal has again published a companion 5G report that examines the experience of users when connecting with 5G technology. In this 5G report, Rogers wins three 5G awards outright and two 5G awards jointly, while its rivals — Bell and Telus — also jointly win a further three 5G awards.
In this report, we are also publishing supporting metrics on the overall experience of just 5G users. These results reflect the experience of just 5G users — those users that have both a 5G smartphone and a 5G tariff plan — across all generations of mobile technology, taking into account the proportion of time 5G users spend connected to 3G, 4G and 5G networks.
| Mobile Experience Awards Canada | |||
|---|---|---|---|
February 2022,
Canada Report
|
B
Bell
|
R
Rogers
|
T
Telus
|
Video Experience
| |||
Games Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
4G Availability
| |||
4G Coverage Experience
| |||
|
Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
February 2022,
Canada
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
T
Telus
|
|
Games Experience
|
T
Telus
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
T
Telus
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
T
Telus
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
February 2022, Canada
|
|---|---|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
B
Bell
T
Telus
|
|
4G Availability
|
B
Bell
R
Rogers
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
B
Bell
T
Telus
|
Our users continue to enjoy the best Video Experience on Telus. The operator wins the Video Experience award with 70.4 points (out of 100), this time with a lead of 4.3 points over Rogers and 1.7 points over Bell. With these scores, all three operators placed in the Very Good category (65<75), which means that Canadian users generally experienced fast loading times and only occasional stalling while streaming videos online over a smartphone.
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Bell
|
R
Rogers
|
T
Telus
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Video Experience – 5G Users
| 72.8 (± 0.59) | 68.7 (± 0.88) | 74.4 (± 0.53) |
| Video Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Bell
|
73 (± 0.59) |
|
R
Rogers
|
69 (± 0.88) |
|
T
Telus
|
74 (± 0.53) |
Telus is now the sole winner of Opensignal's Games Experience award, and with this win, Telus has become the first operator to achieve an outright victory on this measure since we introduced it in the August 2020 mobile network experience report. Compared to the previous report, the Games Experience on Telus has improved by 3.5 points compared to a one-point increase on Roger's. As a result, Telus breaks through the statistical tie it held with Rogers last time and now commands a lead of two points over it with a score of 72.3 (out of 100). Our Bell users also saw their scores improve by 2.7 points to 69.8 points.
Bell, Telus and Rogers have all placed in the Fair (75<85) category for Games Experience.
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Bell
|
R
Rogers
|
T
Telus
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Games Experience – 5G Users
| 71.6 (± 0.89) | 76.2 (± 0.90) | 74.1 (± 0.84) |
| Games Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Bell
|
72 (± 0.89) |
|
R
Rogers
|
76 (± 0.90) |
|
T
Telus
|
74 (± 0.84) |
Opensignal's Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator's cellular network. It analyzes how mobile network conditions, including latency, packet loss, and jitter, affect the multiplayer mobile gaming experience.
Telus continues to lead the Voice App Experience category in Canada and secures the award with a score of 79 points (on a 100-point scale), this time, 1.1-1.5 points ahead of Bell and Rogers which are tied in second place. All three operators rated Acceptable (74<80) for the Voice App Experience.
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Bell
|
R
Rogers
|
T
Telus
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Voice App Experience – 5G Users
| 78.4 (± 0.40) | 80.0 (± 0.38) | 79.9 (± 0.33) |
| Voice App Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
B
Bell
|
78 (± 0.40) |
|
R
Rogers
|
80 (± 0.38) |
|
T
Telus
|
80 (± 0.33) |
Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger. — using a model derived from the International ITU-based approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality.
Bell and Telus are joint winners of the overall Download Speed Experience award with statistically tied scores bordering around the 80 Mbps mark — due to impressive improvements of 9.3 Mbps and 6.9 Mbps, respectively, since the last report. This sprint saw both the operators move further ahead of Rogers, as our users on its network experienced speeds at least 20.5 Mbps slower than their peers on Bell and Telus.
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Bell
|
R
Rogers
|
T
Telus
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Download Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 117.4 (± 2.12) | 75.5 (± 1.40) | 119.7 (± 2.03) |
| Download Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
B
Bell
|
117 (± 2.12) |
|
R
Rogers
|
75 (± 1.40) |
|
T
Telus
|
120 (± 2.03) |
In a close run race, all three Canadian operators competed fiercely for the Upload Speed Experience award but Telus continues to remain the outright winner. Our users on Telus' network saw the fastest average upload speeds of 12.2 Mbps and recorded an improvement of 1.3 Mbps since last time. Meanwhile, our Rogers and Bell users saw greater improvements of 1.4 Mbps and 1.5 Mbps, respectively, with statistically tied scores of 11.5 Mbps.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
B
Bell
|
R
Rogers
|
T
Telus
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 13.8 (± 0.27) | 15.3 (± 0.37) | 14.4 (± 0.31) |
| Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
B
Bell
|
14 (± 0.27) |
|
R
Rogers
|
15 (± 0.37) |
|
T
Telus
|
14 (± 0.31) |
While all three operator's 4G Availability scores have risen since the last report, Bell and Rogers continue to lead on this measure in Canada with statistically tied scores of 93.9% and 93.5%, respectively — just marginally ahead of Rogers' score of 93.3%. This means that our Canadian users, on average, were connected to 4G services or better more than 93% of the time.
Since the last report, Bell's 4G Availability score has grown by 1.6 percentage points, while Telus and Rogers' scores improved by 1.1 points and 0.8 points, respectively. Often, we see a seasonal effect on the mobile experience in Canada and other countries.
Very little has changed since the last report in terms of the 4G Coverage Experience. Bell and Telus jointly win a close-run race for the 4G Coverage Experience award with an identical score of 9.7 points (out of 10), while Rogers follows closely with 8.7 points. Opensignal's 4G Coverage Experience measures how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator's network. It analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
In the regional analysis, we have assessed how the mobile network experience differs across Canada's major provinces on the three national carriers – Bell, Rogers and Telus. We have also compared regional players, such as Videotron and Freedom Mobile, depending on the region.
Looking at Video Experience, Telus bagged five wins this time. The operator continues to share the top spot with Bell in British Columbia and Manitoba and collected an outright victory in Alberta. Regional operator Freedom Mobile and Telus are tied in Ontario, while Videotron reigns superior in Quebec with 73 points — more than three points ahead of Telus. Rogers also collected a joint win in Atlantic provinces where we saw a three-way split between the national operators.
Moving onto Games Experience, the national award winner Telus collected five regional wins, including three joint wins with Bell and Rogers in Alberta, Atlantic Provinces and British Columbia. Telus and Videotron were the only operators to win on Games Experience outright regionally. Telus ranked top in Manitoba, while Videotron is the sole winner in Quebec with a score of 76.8 points — which was the highest Games Experience score across all reported regions.
The regional Download Speed Experience reflected the national results. Bell and Telus each win outright in Alberta and Manitoba, respectively, and collect joint wins in the remaining regions. The fastest average overall download speeds of 94.1 Mbps across all Canadian regions were observed in Alberta on Bell's network.
Regarding regional 4G Availability, in Quebec, our users enjoyed the greatest proportion of time connected to a 4G or better service on Videotron's network. At the same time, that was the case in Manitoba on Telus' network and in British Columbia on Bell's network. Rogers also collects three joint wins — including in the Alberta and Atlantic provinces, where we saw three-way statistical ties.
Select any region or city below to display individual breakdown
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
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