When it comes to Canada’s internet experience, Rogers, Bell, and Telus are the top dogs in town, as the country’s dominate telecoms. But who’s really leading the internet race in Canada?
Opensignal’s latest Fixed Broadband Experience report was released today, covering data from October to December 2024, shows the leaders in speed, reliability, and overall performance.
Rogers Leads in Speed and Reliability
Rogers continues to hold the top spot for consistent quality and reliability. It scored 88.7% in tests that measured how well its network handles everyday tasks like browsing, streaming, and video calls. This was an improvement of more than two percentage points from the last report. Rogers also ranked highest for reliability, scoring 709 out of 1000—more than 10 points ahead of Bell.
When it comes to download speeds, Rogers is still ahead. Its network averaged 198.1 Mbps, about 40 Mbps faster than Bell and over 60 Mbps faster than Telus.
Bell’s Strength Is in Upload Speeds
While Rogers leads for downloads, Bell dominates in upload speeds. Bell’s average upload speed was 109.9 Mbps, over 20% faster than Telus and almost double Rogers’ speed. Bell also performed well in video streaming, tying with Rogers for the best experience. Both providers scored about 76.7 out of 100, meaning users could stream in full HD with minimal buffering. However, they just missed the “Excellent” rating, which starts at 78.
Telus Lags in National Rankings
Telus didn’t lead any major national categories but still showed competitive speeds in some regions. However, its upload and download speeds were behind both Rogers and Bell, highlighting areas where the provider could improve.
Regional Highlights
Rogers dominated regional awards, winning 20 out of 28 categories across Canada. In Manitoba, it swept every award, and in Saskatchewan, it tied or led in all metrics. Rogers also took the top spot for download speed in every region except Quebec.
Bell led in upload speeds in the Atlantic Provinces, Ontario, and Quebec, with an impressive 121 Mbps average in Quebec.
Eastlink also performed well, tying with Bell for consistent quality in the Atlantic Provinces and Ontario.
The feds are pushing to bring high-speed internet (defined as 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload) to all Canadians by 2030. Billions are being invested to improve connectivity in rural areas. Satellite internet providers, like SpaceX’s Starlink, are also part of the solution, especially for remote regions.
Although Ontario recently cancelled a $100 million contract with Starlink due to the U.S. tariff war, Canada continues to support satellite technology through major investment (to the tune of billions) in projects like Telesat Lightspeed, aiming to boost access nationwide. Telesat’s satellites will eventually be launched by SpaceX, the owners of Starlink.
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This is only relevant for people that live in cities. If you live in small towns or villages you are paying for fiber internet but get much much much less. Big rip off
On top of that, if you live in big cities there's beanfield which has a limited availability but they're far and away much better than the big three the fact that neither this nor ooklas ratings even consider beanfield means even as an "average specifically for ppl who live in cities" it's trash. Like it's kinda misleading outside cities, but also misleading inside the big metros so…wtf even is this lol.
like "average" is so misleading cuz I have 8000Mbps but someone living 4 hours drive away has long 20Mbps that difference is so staggering that talking about averages without distinguishing rural, vs city vs large metro is utterly meaningless. Even reliability changes drastically, in smaller cities fiber to house is rare which means you're sharing bandwidth (sometimes for more cost, as you pointed out) with three neighborhood which reduces reliability many fold especially during peak hours for individual household
On top of that, if you live in big cities there's beanfield which has a limited availability but they're far and away much better than the big three the fact that neither this nor ooklas ratings even consider beanfield means even as an "average specifically for ppl who live in cities" it's trash. Like it's kinda misleading outside cities, but also misleading inside the big metros so…wtf even is this lol.
like "average" is so misleading cuz I have 8000Mbps but someone living 4 hours drive away has long 20Mbps that difference is so staggering that talking about averages without distinguishing rural, vs city vs large metro is utterly meaningless. Even reliability changes drastically, in smaller cities fiber to house is rare which means you're sharing bandwidth (sometimes for more cost, as you pointed out) with three neighborhood which reduces reliability many fold especially during peak hours for individual household
On top of that, if you live in big cities there's beanfield which has a limited availability but they're far and away much better than the big three the fact that neither this nor ooklas ratings even consider beanfield means even as an "average specifically for ppl who live in cities" it's trash. Like it's kinda misleading outside cities, but also misleading inside the big metros so…wtf even is this lol.
like "average" is so misleading cuz I have 8000Mbps but someone living 4 hours drive away has long 20Mbps that difference is so staggering that talking about averages without distinguishing rural, vs city vs large metro is utterly meaningless. Even reliability changes drastically, in smaller cities fiber to house is rare which means you're sharing bandwidth (sometimes for more cost, as you pointed out) with three neighborhood which reduces reliability many fold especially during peak hours for individual household
Our Rogers is off and on like a dying fluorescent tube.
John, to put it in perspective, the off-grid and small-community population you're referencing accounts for approximately 1% of Canada's total population. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Instead of focusing on the fastest speeds to 80 percent of highly populated areas, where is the focus on cellular connectivity for data in the other 20 percent of lower populated areas. My data speeds"cellular" in Fingal near St. Thomas are lower than 4mbps download standing in my driveway. But if I go 1km in any direction from Fingal I get 120mbps. I have decent home Internet. Paying for 500mbps and constantly getting just over 100mbps. Bring able to make and recieved calls and texts is a lot more important than getting faster internet for high fees… Lower cost reliable internet and cellular connectivity should be the most important thing being focused on by the "big 3" and by lower cost I mean $25 for unlimited data and calling for Canada. And around $40 for reliable 250mbps internet…
including the stupid government fees…
You do know, Wi-Fi calling is a thing
Yes I do and when I’m close enough to my router it works ok. However… I don’t have a router with a 500 foot range to reach everywhere…. And in houses over a hundred years old wifi sucks from room to room even with mesh routers set up. Too much lead paint I guess… Lol
Instead of focusing on the fastest speeds to 80 percent of highly populated areas, where is the focus on cellular connectivity for data in the other 20 percent of lower populated areas. My data speeds"cellular" in Fingal near St. Thomas are lower than 4mbps download standing in my driveway. But if I go 1km in any direction from Fingal I get 120mbps. I have decent home Internet. Paying for 500mbps and constantly getting just over 100mbps. Bring able to make and recieved calls and texts is a lot more important than getting faster internet for high fees… Lower cost reliable internet and cellular connectivity should be the most important thing being focused on by the "big 3" and by lower cost I mean $25 for unlimited data and calling for Canada. And around $40 for reliable 250mbps internet…
including the stupid government fees…
Rogers? Reliable? That's a laugh. They haven't been able to fix my latency spikes that cause webpages to take 5+ minutes to load; they say they need to send a tech, but the spikes are not something I can control so the tech can see it when they arrive.Bell doesn't even service my building with anything more than 50Mbps DSL. The services available in Ontario have been nothing more than a joke.
Bell is the only service that offers Canadians 8 GB data up and down. Rogers and Telus may say they offer a service like that, but I can assure you I've been waiting years for them to implement their services anywhere, and I've been waiting over 8 years and they promised they have fiber but they really don't.
I currently have bells 3GB up and down for $80. This article has so much misinformation in it that I'm not very surprised. This is pretty typical for journalism nowadays