Bell, Rogers and Telus Lead Canada’s Wi-Fi 7 Shift as Fibre Pulls Ahead

Looks like home Wi-Fi is finally inching into the Wi-Fi 7 era, and Ookla says the jump is almost all fibre.

In an email to iPhone in Canada on Tuesday, Ookla flagged new Speedtest Intelligence numbers from its Evolving State of Canada’s Wi-Fi update for Q1 2026. Wi-Fi 7 sample share hit 4.9%, up from 0.6% a year earlier.

Inside their own mixes, Telus sat at 7.7% and Bell at 7.0%, while cable operators Videotron (1.2%) and Cogeco (1.4%) barely moved. Among Wi-Fi 7 samples nationwide, Bell Pure Fibre held 40.4%, Rogers 26.3%, and Telus PureFibre 20.3%, and Bell’s Wi-Fi 7 median download nearly hit a gigabit at 988.70 Mbps.

Old gear still looks rough though. Wi-Fi 4 shows up in about 10% of Speedtest samples, and median downloads on that generation miss the CRTC‘s national 50 Mbps target at every provider, so Ookla is pushing proactive router replacement as a digital equity issue. On the positive side, 6 GHz usage grew 44% year over year to 13.7% of samples as newer gateways and devices catch up.

Fibre uploads ran 4.2 times faster than cable on Wi-Fi 6, and 6.9 times faster on Wi-Fi 7, with latency about half of cable. That sits beside the consumer fights already on the regulator’s desk, from Rogers, Telus and Bell junk-fee replies to the easier wireless home Internet cancel path, plus public comments on those phone fees and Quebecor’s compliance pitch.

If internet speeds at home still feel stuck, check what generation of gateway you actually have before you blame the plan alone. You could try calling in (if you’re brave to wait on the phone) and ask for a free hardware upgrade, as usually that can happen as a way to retain customers from jumping ship to another provider.