PCMag Reveals Which Canadian ISPs are Best for Gaming for 2022

According to PCMag’s annual test of the best gaming ISPs in Canada for 2022, Bell Canada has the best performance improvements of all major Canadian ISPs, closing the latency/jitter gap to take the top spot from last year’s winner, Shaw Communications.

Locally, Manitoba’s ISP Valley Fiber took the title of Best ISP for Gamers in the country from Toronto’s Beanfield Metroconnect who set records in our testing last year.

For those who aren’t familiar, PCMag’s rankings are based on “Gaming Quality Index,” a calculation that combines the latency of the connection in milliseconds and the score for jitter. The lower the Gaming Quality Index number, the better the quality.

Below are the key highlights of the tests:

• Best Major ISP for Gamers: Bell Canada claims the title this year. Bell’s speeds were the fastest in the country last year, but they lost on the latency/jitter front. They make up for it this year, with both the highest speeds and lowest latency/jitter of all major ISPs.
• Best ISP for Gamers: Valley Fiber in Manitoba takes the cake this year. Toronto’s Beanfield Metroconnect was last year’s winner, setting record low latency/jitter scores that were truly astounding. This year however, that score increased precipitously, causing them to fall off the list altogether.
• Noteworthy ISPs: This year, four smaller ISPs beat out major Canadian ISPs as great options for gamers. This includes, in order, Valley Fiber, Novus, FibreStream, and Communicate Freely.
• Best Province for Gamers: Manitoba is the best province for gamers based on average ISP numbers, with British Columbia in a very close second place. Newfoundland and Labrador ran away with the title last year, but the province finds itself around the middle of the pack this year.
• Noteworthy Provinces: Completing the top 5 provinces for gamers are, in order, British Columbia, Alberta, Québec, Saskatchewan.