Canada ranked fifth among members of the G7 group of advanced economies for mobile reliability experience in a recent study conducted by research firm Opensignal — reports the Financial Times.
Opensignal measured the ability of mobile users in G7 member nations to connect to and complete basic tasks on mobile networks between July 1 and September 28, scoring each country on a 100-1,000 points scale. The survey covered all mobile network generations from 2G to 5G.
Canada came in fifth place with 878 points, trailing behind most of its G7 brethren. Japan ranked first, being the only country to break the 900-point threshold. The U.K., meanwhile, came in last with 859 points. Check out the full cellular reliability experience rankings for the G7 countries below:
During the span of the study, the only notable cellular outage in Canada was a Telus disruption affecting calls in B.C., Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Fortunately, Canadian mobile users didn’t see anything like 2022’s catastrophic Rogers outage during this time.
While Canada’s mobile service reliability is below average among the G7, its score is just six points behind the U.S. Being in spitting distance from its next-door neighbour should at least be some consolation (but is it really?).
Kester Mann, director of consumer and connectivity at research group CCS Insight, said the U.K.’s poor performance reflected “a lack of industry investment, the swap out of Huawei infrastructure, perennial planning issues, and surging demand.”
Canada has also banned Huawei from its wireless networks, and similarly felt the brunt of the decision. Not only did the federal government ban the Chinese company’s gear from 5G networks but Ottawa has also ordered companies to rip out existing hardware from their 4G infrastructure.
Despite the challenges, a user experience report published by Opensignal earlier this month found that 5G connectivity in Canada is improving — albeit slightly and slowly, with average 5G download speeds remaining relatively poor. Canada’s 5G progress lags decidedly behind comparable countries, but last year’s spectrum auction could pave the way to closing the gap.
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