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
National
Rogers leads in Overall Experience
Rogers, which now includes Shaw customers, is recognized for the best overall experience more frequently than any other provider in our report. Rogers secures four outright national wins for Reliability Experience, Consistent Quality, Download Speed and Video Experience. Additionally, it achieves 21 wins across various regional comparisons.
The experience with fibre is dominated by Bell
Bell stands above the competition with its fibre network, winning all five national awards in Fiber Experience. Notably, Bell's “Pure Fibre Internet” leads with significant margins in all three speed categories, compared to its nearest national competitors. Bell's fibre product also garners 13 regional awards, with eight outright wins and five joint wins.
Our users have the most reliable experience on Rogers' network
Rogers scores highest for Opensignal's new metric, Reliability Experience. Reliability Experience measures the ability of our users to connect to and successfully complete 'uninterrupted' tasks on Internet Service Providers' (ISP) networks. Rogers wins with a score of 724 points on a 100-1000 point scale, around 50 points ahead of statistically tied Bell and Telus and over 200 points above Starlink.
Regional
Rogers dominates in Consistent Quality in British Columbia and Manitoba
Rogers has the best Consistent Quality experience in British Columbia and Manitoba, surpassing even fibre competitors. In Saskatchewan, it ties with SaskTel's fibre product “infiNET”.
EastLink users observe the most consistent experience in Alberta and Ontario
EastLink stands unbeaten in Consistent Quality across the three regions where it is included for comparison — Alberta, Atlantic Provinces and Ontario — and further records outright wins in Alberta and Ontario against fibre offerings.
SaskTel is recognised for its fibre experience in Saskatchewan
Our users on SaskTel's “infiNET” product enjoy a leading experience for Consistent Quality and the outright best experience for Upload Speed in Saskatchewan.
Market Overview
In this report, Opensignal has analyzed the real-world fixed broadband experience of our users across Canada and then separately across seven of its regions. To reflect the varying ways in which fixed broadband is used, we have included six different measures of user experience: Consistent Quality, Download Speed, Peak Download Speed, Upload Speed,Video Experience and Reliability Experience (Reliability Experience uses a later data collection period of Mar 1 - May 29).
For our national award tables, we have only included the providers with comparable scale and extent of geographic coverage: Bell, Rogers (which now includes customers of Shaw following the merger in April 2023), Telus and Starlink. In our regional assessment, we have further analyzed the experience of providers that have a significant presence in their selected provinces: Videotron, Cogeco, EastLink, Xplore and SaskTel.
Consumers often face decisions about choosing specific broadband access technologies offered by their local providers. That is why we have further divided our comparisons into three sections: Overall Experience, which looks at the experience of our users regardless of the broadband access delivery technology used; Fiber Experience, which focuses on the experience of users with fibre-to-the-home; and FWA Experience, which examines the experience with Fixed Wireless Access.
At the end of 2023, The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) made a significant regulatory decision requiring large telecom providers like Bell and Telus to provide wholesale access to their fibre-to-the-home networks in Ontario and Quebec. In response to this, Bell argued that mandatory wholesale access would undermine its investments and announced a reduction in its fibre network expansion plans.
Bell Canada was, until recently, the largest fixed broadband provider in the country based on the number of broadband subscriptions in the market. With a broad geographical presence, Bell leverages its incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) infrastructure across Ontario, Quebec, all four Atlantic provinces, Manitoba and the Far North. Bell has been extensively upgrading its infrastructure footprint with fibre-to-the-home – covering around 7.3 million premises as of July 2023, replacing legacy xDSL connections. The provider also operates FWA services, having focused heavily on expanding its wireless broadband infrastructure.
Rogers Communications expanded its footprint significantly by acquiring Shaw Communications in April 2023. The combined entity now serves seven provinces, making it the largest provider in fixed broadband and pay-TV subscriptions, surpassing Bell Canada. Rogers and Shaw have extensively deployed DOCSIS 3.0 and 3.1 technologies across their hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) networks of comparable size, each covering just shy of 5 million homes as of July 2023. Rogers has further plans to implement DOCSIS 4.0 across its networks, and also provides FWA services leveraging its 5G infrastructure – targeting rural and other areas underserved by traditional broadband.
Telus is the third largest broadband provider in Canada by market share, and the largest in Western Canada by the number of fixed network subscriptions, serving as the incumbent local exchange operator (ILEC) across British Columbia and Alberta. Telus has a growing fibre footprint, with around 3.1 million fibre-to-the-home/building premises passed as of July 2023 it is now substantially bigger than its legacy xDSL footprint. Telus maintains significant growth in terms of subscriptions added, and has further aims of expanding its “PureFibre” gigabit network.
We have included Starlink, operated by SpaceX, in our comparison, as it is the most prominent pure satellite internet provider in Canada. Canada and the United States were the first markets to experience Starlink's satellite internet services, starting in January 2021. Despite its cost, Starlink has become an important provider in Canada, particularly in rural and remote areas that lack access to traditional fixed broadband. Starlink has been continuously expanding its satellite constellation, which, as of May 2024, had over 6,000 active satellites.
Note: This report was updated post-publication on June 26th 2024 to include Reliability Experience.
National Fixed Broadband Experience
Category description:
The experience of our users across all of the broadband access delivery technologies used.
Definitions
Broadband Consistent Quality measures how often a network, from the perspective of a single device once connectivity is established, meets the requirements for common applications. Broadband Consistent Quality uses six key performance indicators: download and upload speeds, latency, jitter, packet loss, and time to first byte, setting thresholds appropriate for individual rather than multiple device usage. Metrics represent the percentage of users’ tests meeting these performance thresholds to support activities like watching HD video, completing group video calls, and gaming across all hours of the day.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Broadband Download Speed represents the typical everyday speeds a user experiences across a provider’s network.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Broadband Peak Download Speed represents the 98th percentile of the user speed distribution. i.e. this is what the users with the highest speeds within the footprint experience.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Broadband Upload Speed measures the average upload speeds for each internet service provider observed by our users across their fixed networks. Typically, upload speeds are slower than download speeds, but this often depends on the technology used for broadband connections.
Definitions
Opensignal’s adaptive video experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's network. The metric measures users’ adaptive video experience using a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) approach inspired by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters of adaptive bitrate video streaming and the perceived video experience as reported by real people.
The videos tested are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers and include a wide selection of resolutions that dynamically match the network conditions, available bandwidth and device performance. Resolutions range from 144p to 2160p, which is also called 4K or UHD (Ultra High Definition). The model calculates a MOS score on a 0 to 100 scale by evaluating a number of parameters, including: the time to start playing the video, the quality of the video, the time playing each resolution, and the time spent re-buffering.
Definitions
Opensignal's Broadband Reliability Experience measures the ability of a household to connect to the internet and to successfully complete 'uninterrupted' tasks across multiple devices, encompassing work and recreational activities. While Reliability incorporates and expands upon elements akin to Broadband Consistent Quality, it uniquely includes assessments of initial connectivity and continuous completion of tasks, making it more comprehensive in scenarios involving multiple simultaneous connections.
Category description:
The experience of our users who are served by fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) where available from the provider, in comparison to other providers in the market.
Definitions
Broadband Consistent Quality measures how often a network, from the perspective of a single device once connectivity is established, meets the requirements for common applications. Broadband Consistent Quality uses six key performance indicators: download and upload speeds, latency, jitter, packet loss, and time to first byte, setting thresholds appropriate for individual rather than multiple device usage. Metrics represent the percentage of users’ tests meeting these performance thresholds to support activities like watching HD video, completing group video calls, and gaming across all hours of the day.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Broadband Download Speed represents the typical everyday speeds a user experiences across a provider’s network.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Broadband Peak Download Speed represents the 98th percentile of the user speed distribution. i.e. this is what the users with the highest speeds within the footprint experience.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Broadband Upload Speed measures the average upload speeds for each internet service provider observed by our users across their fixed networks. Typically, upload speeds are slower than download speeds, but this often depends on the technology used for broadband connections.
Definitions
Opensignal’s adaptive video experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's network. The metric measures users’ adaptive video experience using a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) approach inspired by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters of adaptive bitrate video streaming and the perceived video experience as reported by real people.
The videos tested are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers and include a wide selection of resolutions that dynamically match the network conditions, available bandwidth and device performance. Resolutions range from 144p to 2160p, which is also called 4K or UHD (Ultra High Definition). The model calculates a MOS score on a 0 to 100 scale by evaluating a number of parameters, including: the time to start playing the video, the quality of the video, the time playing each resolution, and the time spent re-buffering.
Category description:
The experience of our users who are served by Fixed Wireless Access (FWA).
Definitions
Broadband Consistent Quality measures how often a network, from the perspective of a single device once connectivity is established, meets the requirements for common applications. Broadband Consistent Quality uses six key performance indicators: download and upload speeds, latency, jitter, packet loss, and time to first byte, setting thresholds appropriate for individual rather than multiple device usage. Metrics represent the percentage of users’ tests meeting these performance thresholds to support activities like watching HD video, completing group video calls, and gaming across all hours of the day.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Broadband Download Speed represents the typical everyday speeds a user experiences across a provider’s network.
Definitions
Measured in Mbps, Broadband Upload Speed measures the average upload speeds for each internet service provider observed by our users across their fixed networks. Typically, upload speeds are slower than download speeds, but this often depends on the technology used for broadband connections.
Definitions
Opensignal’s adaptive video experience quantifies the quality of video streamed to mobile devices by measuring real-world video streams over an operator's network. The metric measures users’ adaptive video experience using a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) approach inspired by International Telecommunication Union (ITU) studies which have derived a relationship between technical parameters of adaptive bitrate video streaming and the perceived video experience as reported by real people.
The videos tested are streamed directly from the world’s largest video content providers and include a wide selection of resolutions that dynamically match the network conditions, available bandwidth and device performance. Resolutions range from 144p to 2160p, which is also called 4K or UHD (Ultra High Definition). The model calculates a MOS score on a 0 to 100 scale by evaluating a number of parameters, including: the time to start playing the video, the quality of the video, the time playing each resolution, and the time spent re-buffering.
Regional Fixed Broadband Experience
Category description:
The experience of our users across all of the broadband access delivery technologies used.
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- Alberta
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Category description:
The experience of our users who are served by fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) where available from the provider, in comparison to other providers in the market.
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- Alberta
- Atlantic provinces
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- Manitoba
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Category description:
The experience of our users who are served by Fixed Wireless Access (FWA).
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