Opensignal published the latest Fixed Broadband Experience report for Canada, which details the real-world performance of various internet products.
The key findings in this report include that Rogers offers the best overall broadband experience nationally. But while Rogers might be best overall, Bell dominates the fibre experience.
Opensignal builds these reports by collecting daily individual measurements from over 100 million devices globally, which it uses to analyze the mobile and broadband user experiences. This report uses data collected between February 1st and April 30th, 2024.
The report includes a market overview with some interesting details. For one, the national report looks only at the providers with comparable scale and geographic coverage, which includes Bell, Rogers (which also includes Shaw customers following the merger), Telus and Starlink. Opensignal included more players in its regional assessments. The report notes that Bell was the largest fixed broadband provider in Canada until recently. Rogers, with its Shaw acquisition, became the largest provider. Telus comes in third but is the largest provider in Western Canada and has a growing fibre footprint.
Looking at the national experience, Rogers took three out of five categories: consistent quality, download speed, and video experience. Bell, however, took peak download speed and upload speed.
- Consistent quality: measures how often a network was able to support the requirements of common activations. Uses six key indicators, like download and upload speed, latency, and more.
- Download speed: Measures typical everyday speeds of a given network in Mbps.
- Peak download speed: Measures 98th percentile of user speed distribution in Mbps.
- Upload speed: Measures average upload speed experienced by users of each internet service provider in Mbps.
- Video experience: Quantifies the quality of video streamed by measuring real-world video streams over a network.
There’s not much to talk about with the national fibre categories since Bell swept everything. There’s also little to say for national fixed wireless access since Bell and Rogers’ wireless home internet options were joint winners in every category except upload speeds, where Rogers had a slight edge.
On the regional side, things are a little more interesting. Eastlink, for example, won or jointly won every category except upload speed in Alberta. Eastlink was the sole winner for consistent quality in the province and Telus was the only winner for upload speed.
In B.C., Rogers (including Shaw) took wins in consistent quality and download speed and jointly won peak download speed and video experience with Telus. Telus, again, claimed upload speed.
Manitoba had a similar experience with Rogers taking several wins, except instead of Telus taking upload speed, Rogers won it jointly with Bell.
Ontario and Quebec had more diverse winners. In Ontario, Eastlink took consistent quality, Rogers took download speeds and Bell claimed upload speeds. The other two categories were jointly won by three or more providers. In Quebec, Cogeco and Videotron shared the win for consistent quality while Bell had best download and upload speeds.
Rogers swept in Saskatchewan, while in the Atlantic provinces, Rogers took download speed and Bell took upload speed.
Those interested can view the full report here.
Header image credit: Shutterstock
Images credit: Opensignal
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