Canada
Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumers' connectivity experiences. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding what happens when people use their mobile and broadband connections in their daily life.
Canada
Opensignal is the independent global standard for analyzing consumers' connectivity experiences. Our industry reports are the definitive guide to understanding what happens when people use their mobile and broadband connections in their daily life.
Key Findings
Telus has the most consistent experience in Canada
When we consider Opensignal’s two measures for the consistency of the experience — for basic or for more advanced applications — Telus wins both awards outright, with scores of 81.3% for Excellent Consistent Quality and 91.1% for Core Consistent Quality. Consistent quality quantifies how often users' network experience was sufficient to support typical applications' requirements. Excellent Consistent Quality uses thresholds for more demanding applications than Core Consistent Quality.
Bell is the outright winner of the Download Speed Experience award
Telus has been the dominant operator in Canada when it comes to Download Speed Experience. But this time we have a new winner. Bell wins the Download Speed Experience award as our users on it’s network saw the fastest overall download speed, averaging 69.5 Mbps — 2.4% faster than those on Telus.
Telus is top in Canada for Games and Voice App Experience
Telus beats the competition on the quality of experience while playing multiplayer mobile games and using over-the-top (OTT) voice services in Canada. In Games Experience, Telus wins the award with a lead of 1.9-2.3 points over Bell and Rogers. Telus also wins the Voice App Experience award, but it was a very tight race, with just 1.1-1.5 points (out of 100) separating all three operators.
Rogers bags the Upload Speed Experience award by a narrow margin
With average upload speeds of 10.7 Mbps, Rogers users saw the fastest Upload Speed Experience in Canada — 0.4-0.6 Mbps ahead of Bell and Telus were just slightly behind with statistically tied scores in the 10.1-10.3 Mbps range.
Bell and Telus lead in 4G Coverage Experience
Bell and Telus win the 4G Coverage Experience award with impressive (and identical) scores of 9.7 on a 10-point scale, ahead of Rogers with 8.8. Opensignal's 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.
Mobile Experience Awards
Market Overview
Last summer, Canadian carriers bid billions of dollars to obtain spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band, which is crucial for 5G in the country. As a result of this auction, the big three carriers – Bell, Rogers and Telus – walked away with 80% of the total spectrum on auction and have recently started using it for 5G. To access Canada's progress with 5G, Opensignal has published a companion Canada 5G Experience report, which analyzes the experience of our 5G users when they were connected to 5G.
In Opensignal's latest look at the Canadian Mobile Network Experience report, we analyze the overall experience of our users across all network technologies. Also, we add two awards that quantify the consistency of users' experience in the country's three national carriers — Bell, Rogers and Telus.
Our analysis shows that Telus is the leading carrier in Canada when it comes to the overall — 3G, 4G and 5G — mobile network experience. Based on Opensignal's awards table, Telus is top in six out of nine categories; it wins four awards outright — Games Experience and Voice App Experience, and both the categories for Consistent Quality — while also jointly winning in two categories: Video Experience and 4G Coverage Experience. On the other hand, Bell edged out to take the Download Speed Experience outright, which is noteworthy given Telus has been a consistent winner for this category. Meanwhile, Rogers takes hold of the Upload Speed Experience award.
This report examines the mobile network experience of the three main mobile carriers — Bell, Rogers and Telus over a period of 90 days, starting on April 1, 2022, and ending on June 29, 2022, to see how they fared nationally. The recent high profile telecom network outage occurred after our standard Canadian data collection period. It's worth noting that Canadian scores are typically impacted by seasonality during this period which could have contributed to the slight decline in scores from our previous report.
Overall Experience
National Analysis
Our users across Canada's three national networks did not see any statistical difference in the quality of experience when streaming videos over mobile internet. As a result, all three are joint winners of the Video Experience award with scores in the range of 57.7-58.3 points, placing them in the Good (55-65) category.
Definitions
Opensignal’s Video Experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's networks. The metric is based on an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach, built upon detailed studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters, including picture quality, video loading time and stall rate, with the perceived video experience as reported by real people. To calculate video experience, we are directly measuring video streams from end-user devices and using this ITU approach to quantify the overall video experience for each operator on a scale from 0 to 100. The videos tested include a mixture of resolutions — including Full HD (FHD) and 4K / Ultra HD (UHD) — and are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers.
In addition to Video Experience, we report on the following metrics related to video experience:
- 5G Video Experience: The average Video Experience of Opensignal users when they were connected to an operator’s 5G network.
- Video Experience – 5G Users: The average Video Experience of Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator's networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G video experience along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Video Experience: The average Video Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 4G network.
- 3G Video Experience: The average Video Experience of Opensignal users on an operator’s 3G network.
National Analysis
Our Telus users had the best experience in Canada when playing multiplayer mobile games over cellular connections. Telus wins the Games Experience award with a score of 66.5 points on a 100-point scale, giving it a lead of 1.9-2.3 points over second-placed Bell and Rogers. With these scores, Telus garnered a Fair (65-76) rating for overall Games Experience while Bell and Rogers placed lower.
Definitions
Opensignal’s Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-100, it analyzes how our users’ multiplayer mobile gaming experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter.
Games Experience quantifies the experience when playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to servers located around the world. The approach is built on several years of research quantifying the relationship between technical network parameters and the gaming experience as reported by real mobile users. These parameters include latency (round trip time), jitter (variability of latency) and packet loss (the proportion of data packets that never reach their destination). Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.
Calculating Games Experience starts with measuring the end-to-end experience from users’ devices to internet end-points that host real games. The score is then measured on a scale from 0 to 100.
In addition to Games Experience, we report on the following metrics related to games experience:
- 5G Games Experience: The average Games Experience of Opensignal users when they were connected to an operator’s 5G network.
- Games Experience – 5G Users: The average Games Experience of Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator's networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G games experience along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Games Experience: The average Games Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 4G network.
- 3G Games Experience: The average Games Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 3G (e.g. UMTS/HSPA or CDMA 1X EV-DO) network.
National Analysis
Telus is the outright winner of the Voice App Experience award, scoring 75.5 points on a 100-point scale. However, its margin of victory is relatively narrow, given Bell and Rogers statistically tied for second place with scores in the 74.1-74.4 point range. All three mobile carriers placed in the Acceptable category (74-80) for Voice App Experience.
Definitions
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 Telecommunication Union (ITU) 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. Voice App Experience for each operator is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100.
In addition to Voice App Experience, we report on the following metrics related to voice app experience:
- 5G Voice App Experience: The average Voice App Experience of Opensignal users when they were connected to an operator’s 5G network.
- Voice App Experience – 5G Users: The average Voice App Experience of Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator's networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G voice app experience along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Voice App Experience: The average Voice App Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 4G network.
- 3G Voice App Experience: The average Voice App Experience of Opensignal users on an operator's 3G (e.g. UMTS/HSPA or CDMA 1X EV-DO) network.
National Analysis
Bell users experienced the fastest overall download speeds in Canada, 69.5 Mbps on average — 1.6 Mbps (2.4%) faster than Telus' score of 67.9 Mbps and 16.2 Mbps faster than third-placed Rogers with 53.4 Mbps. This means Bell is the winner of the Download Speed Experience award.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Download Speed Experience represents the typical everyday speeds a user experiences across an operator’s mobile data networks.
In addition to Download Speed Experience, we report on the following metrics related to download speeds:
- 5G Download Speed: The average download speed observed by Opensignal users with active 5G connections.
- Download Speed Experience – 5G Users: The average download speeds experienced by Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator’s networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G download speeds along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Download Speed: The average downlink speed observed by Opensignal users when they were connected to 4G.
- 3G Download Speed: The average downlink speed observed by Opensignal users when they were connected to 3G (e.g. UMTS/HSPA or CDMA 1X EV-DO).
National Analysis
Rogers is the winner of the Upload Speed Experience award. Our users on Rogers' network reported the top overall upload speeds in Canada, which averaged 10.7 Mbps. Meanwhile, Bell and Telus were just slightly behind with statistically tied scores in the 10.1-10.3 Mbps range.
Definitions
Upload Speed Experience measures the average upload speeds for each operator observed by our users across their mobile data networks. Typically upload speeds are slower than download speeds, as current mobile broadband technologies focus resources on providing the best possible download speed for users consuming content on their devices. As mobile internet trends move away from downloading content to creating content and supporting real-time communications services, upload speeds are becoming more vital and new technologies are emerging that boost upstream capacity.
In addition to Upload Speed Experience, we report on five supporting metrics related to upload speeds:
- 5G Upload Speed: The average upload speed observed by Opensignal users with active 5G connections.
- Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users: The average upload speeds experienced by Opensignal users with a 5G device and a 5G subscription across an operator’s networks. It factors in 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G upload speeds along with the availability of each technology.
- 4G Upload Speed: The average uplink speed observed by Opensignal users when they were connected to 4G.
- 3G Upload Speed: The average uplink speed observed by Opensignal users when they were connected to 3G (e.g. UMTS/HSPA or CDMA 1X EV-DO).
Regional Analysis
Our regional analysis assessed how the mobile network experience varies across seven Canadian provinces. Our results highlight how our users' experience on Canada's three national carriers – Bell, Rogers and Telus – compares with regional players operating in some provinces, but not others, such as Freedom Mobile, Quebec's Videotron, and Saskatchewan's Sasktel.
We saw a number of regional joint wins for Video Experience in all provinces except for Manitoba and Quebec. Telus wins outright in Manitoba and collects joint wins in four other provinces, including Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario, where Freedom Mobile shares the top spot with all three national operators. Meanwhile, Videotron is the sole winner in Quebec, as our users on its network enjoyed the best available Video Experience in the province.
In our regional analysis of Games Experience, national winner Telus is the outright winner in Manitoba and jointly wins in a further five provinces, including Alberta and British Columbia, where users across all three national networks saw no statistically significant difference in their Games Experience. Videotron was the only other operator to win outright in this category — the operator is top for Games Experience in Quebec.
Turning to overall regional mobile speeds in Canada, we see a two-horse race between Bell and Telus in Download Speed Experience. While Bell wins outright in Quebec, Telus is the winner in Manitoba. Both the operators are also joint winners in Atlantic provinces, British Columbia, Ontario and Saskatchewan, meaning there is no statistical difference in the average download speeds reported by our Bell and Telus users. In Alberta, Rogers and Bell are joint winners.
Regional Analysis Summary: Canada, Mobile Network Experience Report, August 2022
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Coverage
National Analysis
We saw very little variation in the time Canadian users spent with a mobile broadband connection on each operator. Bell and Rogers jointly win the Availability award, with scores in the 98.8-98.9% range, just slightly ahead of Telus (98.7%). This means that our Canadian users spent more than 98% time connected to either 3G, 4G, or 5G, regardless of their choice of network.
Definitions
Our availability metrics are not a measure of a network’s geographical extent. They won’t tell you whether you are likely to get a signal if you plan to visit a remote rural or nearly uninhabited region. Instead, they measure what proportion of time people have a network connection, in the places they most commonly frequent — something often missed by traditional coverage metrics. Looking at when users have a connection rather than where, provides us with a more precise reflection of the true user experience.
We also keep track of the instances that leave mobile users most frustrated: when there is no signal to connect to at all. The most common dead zones users struggle with occur indoors. As most of our availability data is collected indoors (as that’s where users spend most of their time), we’re particularly astute at detecting areas of zero signal.
Our availability metrics take a user-centric, time-based approach that complements the user-centric and geographical-based methodology used by our reach metrics.
Availability shows the proportion of time all Opensignal users on an operator’s network had either a 3G, 4G or 5G connection.
National Analysis
Bell and Telus jointly win the 4G Coverage Experience award with impressive and identical scores of 9.7 on a 10-point scale — ahead of Rogers' score of 8.8 — which means our Bell and Telus users connected to 4G in 97 out of 100 locations visited by our Canadian users on average.
Definitions
4G Coverage Experience measures how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-10, 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 simple terms, 4G Coverage Experience measures the mobile coverage experience in all the locations that matter most to everyday users — i.e. all the places where they live, work and travel. It considers all the areas that Opensignal users visit, the portion of locations that 4G is available to them, and locations that more users visit have higher importance to them.
Regional Analysis
Canadian carriers performed well in our regional analysis of Availability, with scores above 98% across all national and regional networks. This means users across all networks in Canada were able to spend more than 98% of the time connected to mobile internet services — i.e. 3G or better. Looking at winners, Bell, Rogers and Telus are joint top for Availability in four out of seven provinces, including Alberta and Saskatchewan, alongside Freedom Mobile and Saskatel, respectively. It's noteworthy that Freedom Mobile is the only carrier to win a regional Availability outright. Our Freedom Mobile users see the highest Availability in Ontario — a nearly perfect score of 99.2%.
Regional Analysis Summary: Canada, Mobile Network Experience Report, August 2022
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Consistency
National Analysis
Telus is the winner of the Excellent Consistent Quality award, as 81.3% of Telus users' tests met the minimum recommended performance thresholds sufficient to support demanding common applications (such as HD video, group video conference calls, and gaming). Meanwhile, Bell followed closely with 80.2%, while Rogers was further away with 77.8%.
Definitions
Consistent Quality measures how often users’ experience on a network was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements. It measures download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss, time to first byte and the percentage of tests attempted which did not succeed due to a connectivity issue on either the download or server response component.
Full details on how the Consistent Quality metrics — Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality — are calculated can be found here.
Excellent Consistent Quality is the percentage of users’ tests that met the minimum recommended performance thresholds to watch HD video, complete group video conference calls and play games.
National Analysis
Telus is also the sole winner of the Core Consistent Quality award, with a score of 91.1%. Moreover, Telus is the only Canadian operator with scores above the 90% mark — ahead of Bell and Rogers with 89.1% and 87.4%, respectively.
Definitions
Consistent Quality measures how often users’ experience on a network was sufficient to support common applications’ requirements. It measures download speed, upload speed, latency, jitter, packet loss, time to first byte and the percentage of tests attempted which did not succeed due to a connectivity issue on either the download or server response component.
Full details on how the Consistent Quality metrics — Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality — are calculated can be found here.
Core Consistent Quality is the percentage of users’ tests that met the minimum recommended performance thresholds for lower performance applications including SD video, voice calls and web browsing.
Related Analysis
Our Methodology
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile and broadband user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
About Opensignal
Opensignal is the leading global provider of independent insights into consumers' connectivity experiences and choice of carrier. Our proprietary insights into mobile and broadband networks give operators the solutions they need to profitably compete and win, from executive level scorecards and public validation to pin-point level engineering analytics and consumer decision dynamics.
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Confidence Intervals
For every metric we calculate statistical confidence intervals indicated on our graphs. When confidence intervals overlap, our measured results are too close to declare a winner. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple operator winners.
In our bar graphs we represent confidence intervals as boundaries on either sides of graph bars.
In our supporting-metric charts we show confidence intervals as +/- numerical values.
Why confidence intervals are vital in analyzing mobile network experience