Mobile Networks Update: Canada (August 2018)

In our last Canada report, Telus ran the table in our metrics, winning or tying for the lead in every single category. In our most recent test period, Telus maintained its commanding position, but we saw big improvements from all three nationwide operators in our 4G download measurements, pushing average LTE speeds across Canada to new heights. Six months have passed since Opensignal published its last State of Mobile Networks: Canada report so it's time for our semi-annual update of our metrics in the Great White North. Analyzing nearly 678 million measurements collected in the 90 days from April 1, 2018, we compared the 3G and 4G results of Canada's three nationwide operators.

  • Canada has received a big injection of 4G speed in the last six months. Average 4G download speeds rose by at least 5 Mbps in our results for all three operators, but Telus held onto the 4G download award with an average connection speed of 51.1 Mbps. That makes Telus the first Canadian operator to pass the 50 Mbps threshold in our national metrics.
  • LTE reach is still increasing in Canada, but it's growing incrementally. We tracked the biggest gain in our 4G availability metric on Bell, an increase of less than 2 percentage points, while Telus saw a smaller uptick. Those two operators tied for our 4G availability award as each was able to provide an LTE signal to our users just under 89% of the time.
  • We continue to track much faster speeds in the cities of Toronto and Montreal than on the national level. Both Bell and Telus beat their national 4G download speed scores by more than 20 Mbps in Toronto and more than 13 Mbps in Montreal.

Opensignal Awards Table

Download Speed: 4G Download Speed: 3G Download Speed: Overall Upload Speed: 4G Latency: 4G Latency: 3G Availability: 4G

Bell

medal medal medal

Rogers

Telus

medal medal medal medal medal medal medal

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Performance by Metric

Download Speed: 4G

This metric shows the average download speed for each operator on LTE connections as measured by Opensignal users.

Download Speed: 3G

This metric shows the average download speed for each operator on 3G connections as measured by Opensignal users.

Download Speed: Overall

This metric shows the average download speed experienced by Opensignal users across all of an operator's 3G and 4G networks. Overall speed doesn't just factor in 3G and LTE speeds, but also the availability of each network technology. Operators with lower LTE availability tend to have lower overall speeds because their customers spend more time connected to slower 3G networks.

Upload Speed: 4G

This metric shows the average upload speed for each operator on LTE connections as measured by Opensignal users.

Latency: 4G

This metric shows the average latency for each operator on LTE connections as measured by Opensignal users. Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as it makes a round trip through the network. A lower score in this metric is a sign of a more responsive network.

Latency: 3G

This metric shows the average latency for each operator on 3G connections as measured by Opensignal users. Latency, measured in milliseconds, is the delay data experiences as it makes a round trip through the network. A lower score in this metric is a sign of a more responsive network.

Availability: 4G

This metric shows the proportion of time Opensignal users have an LTE connection available to them on each operator’s network. It's a measure of how often users can access a 4G network rather than a measure of geographic or population coverage.

Regional Performance

This chart shows the regional winners in each category Opensignal measures. Click on the icons to see a more detailed graph showing each operator’s metrics in a particular region.

Legend: Telus Videotron Bell Rogers Freedom Mobile
RegionDownload Speed: 4GUpload Speed: 4GLatency: 4GAvailability: 4G
Montreal
Toronto

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Our Methodology

Opensignal measures the real-world experience of consumers on mobile networks as they go about their daily lives. We collect 3 billion individual measurements every day from tens of millions of smartphones worldwide.

Our measurements are collected at all hours of the day, every day of the year, under conditions of normal usage, including inside buildings and outdoors, in cities and the countryside, and everywhere in between. By analyzing on-device measurements recorded in the places where subscribers actually live, work and travel, we report on mobile network service the way users truly experience it.

For this particular report, 677,955,843 datapoints were collected from 31,762 users during the period: 2018-04-01 - 2018-06-29.

We continually adapt our methodology to best represent the changing experience of consumers on mobile networks and, therefore, comparisons of the results to past reports should be considered indicative only. For more information on how we collect and analyze our data, see our methodology page.

For every metric we've calculated statistical confidence intervals and plotted them on all of the graphs. When confidence intervals overlap for a certain metric, our measured results are too close to declare a winner in a particular category. In those cases, we show a statistical draw. For this reason, some metrics have multiple operator winners.

Opensignal Limited retains ownership of this report including all intellectual property rights, data, content, graphs & analysis. Reports produced by Opensignal Limited may not be quoted, reproduced, distributed, published for any commercial purpose (including use in advertisements or other promotional content) without prior written consent.