Speed – it is what everybody craves whether it is in the automobile we drive, a project our boss has us working on – but especially when it comes to our mobile wireless network. We demand fast uploads and exceptionally fast downloads. The carriers all like to claim that they are the fastest so they can lure you into switching over to them – after all, the faster the downloads the faster you can watch the latest movies or videos. Ookla Speedtest goes around the world testing the network speeds and just happened to land in Canada recently. Carriers in Canada, like the US, change very little from year-to-year. Canada is dominated by Rogers, Bell, and Telus – the Big Three – although they have many sub-carriers such as Fido and Chatr that fall under Rogers, Virgin Mobility and MTS that fall under Bell, and Koodo and Public Mobile that are under Telus.
That doesn’t mean that the carriers do not make improvements every year, even offering new services such as Voice over LTE (VoLTE). Compared to last year at this time, the average download speed in Canada has improved 21-percent to 25.21 Mbps and upload speeds increased by 18-percent to 8.62 Mbps – placing Canada 26th for mobile internet download speeds in the world. Speedtest is the most popular and trusted way to measure the speed of the internet and testing can be conducted on any device receiving an internet signal whether you are stationary (home) or on the go (car.) When testing Canada’s carriers, they took no less than 794,613 tests to determine the speed changes.
When it comes to the fastest wireless mobile service, Bell Mobility takes the prize in download speeds. It has consistently been fast with an average download speed of 30.47 Mbps and edged out Fido with 29.84 Mbps, and Rogers at 29.37 Mbps. Telus could only muster 26.79 Mbps, while Wind Mobile had a speed pf 6.30 Mbps. Bell scores particular high in the major cities and has wider access across the country that Rogers or Telus. Bell has also rolled out VoLTE and WiFi Calling. When it comes to upload speeds, Fido takes the lead with 10.39 Mbps, followed closely by Bell with 10.62 Mbps, Rogers with 10.49 Mbps, Telus with 9.59 Mbps, and Wind Mobile at 1.48 Mbps.
Mobile wireless speed in Canada is pretty consistent among the Big Three, but the regional carriers can also hold their own. Videotron had a great download speed of 29.34 Mbps, with SaskTel and Eastlink also showing steady speeds of 15.00 Mbps and 25.16 Mbps respectively.