Fastest Mobile Networks Canada 2016

Canada has caught the smartphone bug. Over the last year, the percentage of Canadians using smartphones jumped from 55 to 68 percent, and it's still growing. Smartphones keep us connected, informed, and entertained—but they're nothing without a network. So for the past four years, we've surveyed all of Canada's wireless networks to find out which one is the fastest and most reliable in each of the country's major cities.

For the second year in a row, Bell is clearly Canada's Fastest Wireless Network. We drove to nearly two dozen Canadian metro areas, surveying speeds and coverage from Halifax to Victoria. We discovered that Bell's network in Toronto and Vancouver is spectacularly fast, exceeding anything we've ever seen in our US results. Bell's LTE is probably even faster than the Internet access you have at home. It's truly a world-class 4G experience.

Bell has benefited for two years now from strong partnership agreements with Telus and Sasktel, and by taking advantage of all of the latest wireless technologies, from three-carrier aggregation to small cell rollouts. Telus has adopted the same key technologies as well. You'll need a recent phone to take advantage of the carrier's fastest speeds. For more, see The Fastest Phones for Canadian Networks.

There are plenty of bright spots in terms of wireless performance across the country. All three of Canada's national carriers are faster and more reliable, on average, than their US counterparts. Videotron has put together an excellent network in Quebec, and Eastlink excels at reliability in Nova Scotia and PEI. For more on each of the carriers we looked at, see Carrier and Network Profiles.

This study, as always, is a snapshot in time. We tested in Canada from July 25 to August 16, 2016, and networks may have changed by the time you read this. For more on how we tested, see our Methodology.

We only test data networks, not call completion or text message delivery. (You can draw some conclusions from the reliability of the data networks, though.) The most recent report on calling and texting is much more limited than ours; it's a RootMetrics test in eight cities from late 2015.

So, About Those Prices...

Earlier this month, the Canadian Radio-Television and Communications Commission (CRTC) issued a report showing what everyone already knew: Wireless service in Canada is expensive. According to the study terms, which averaged different providers and different cities, Canada was the most expensive of seven countries tested for low-volume wireless service, and second or third (usually behind Japan or the US) at most other levels.

Canada's rates have always been similar to the US's two biggest operators, AT&T and Verizon. A 5GB wireless plan from AT&T, with one phone, costs $96 CAD at current exchange rates. The same plan from Rogers or Bell in Toronto costs $105. That's not an outrageous difference (for more details on pricing, see Wireless Plans Compared).

What Canada lacks, of course, is the kind of aggressive discounting you see from the smaller US operators, Sprint and T-Mobile. T-Mobile's MetroPCS brand offers 5GB nationwide service for $64 CAD. Fido, Virgin, and Koodo, the Canadian equivalents, are all up at $90. And Sprint, T-Mobile, and their subsidiary brands like Boost and MetroPCS also offer unlimited data plans, which Canadians can only get if they're lucky enough to live in MB or SK.

The US also has a thriving, fast-moving sector of virtual operators (MVNOs) like Straight Talk and Republic Wireless, which attract very price-sensitive customers. Canadian carriers have generally been hostile to MVNO agreements, keeping the bottom end of the market pretty sleepy. PC Mobile, 7-11, and Petro-Canada have all been around for a while, and they don't undercut the bigger carriers much once wireless data is involved.

It's also extremely clear that Canada is not one market, and prices vary depending on which provinces have strong regional competitors. A 5GB or 6GB plan on Bell costs $105 per month in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, PEI, and BC; $75 in Quebec; $60 in Manitoba; and $55 in Saskatchewan.

The difference is not just having a fourth carrier—it turns out that it's having an aggressive, competitive fourth carrier. In the East, Eastlink has a high-quality network but isn't aggressive enough on pricing to move the Big Three much. In Ontario, Alberta, and BC, Wind is super-aggressive on pricing, but doesn't have a high-quality-enough network to cause them worries. Wind has still managed to accumulate a million subscribers as of July, showing there's an untapped market for less expensive wireless service.

Competition may even lessen over the next year if Bell's purchase of MTS goes through. If the CRTC allows that purchase without a lot of caveats and firebreaks, rates in Winnipeg could shoot up to what they are in Toronto—almost 50 percent higher for many plans.

So now we get back to the government's long, quixotic quest to nurture a fourth nationwide carrier, which has been going on since 2008. Public Mobile failed and got bought by Telus. Mobilicity failed and got bought by Rogers. Selling nationwide spectrum to Videotron apparently failed; Videotron decided to sit on it. Wind has changed hands several times.

The current, best hope for competition is in cable giant Shaw's purchase of Wind, and its launch of a new LTE network in late 2016 or early 2017. While that may raise Wind's super-low rates, there's a huge difference between Wind's prices and the Big Three's right now—and any little bit can help. Maybe next year, Canada can be the world's third most expensive wireless market.

Read on to see our national and regional winners, and the winners for each city we tested.

Seamus Bellamy, Royel Edwards, Richard Greenberg, Keith Krulak, Addy Litfin, and Bryson Masse contributed to this project.

Nationwide: Bell

Nationwide: Bell

Canada's networks may be costly, but they sure are fast. In our four years of testing, we've consistently found Canadian LTE networks to be much faster than US LTE systems, and that holds true in 2016 as well. The three major Canadian carriers, on average, deliver download speeds roughly double what their American competitors do: Verizon, our winner for Fastest Mobile Network in the US, averages 27.8Mbps down, while Bell averages 59.7Mbps down.

The difference may come because of a cooperative approach to network building. Bell and Telus work together, as does Rogers with both Videotron and MTS, with the result that they're able to construct robust networks using broad bands of spectrum that deliver very fast speeds.

Telus and Bell's tri-band carrier aggregation, which combines three different slices of spectrum into one broad superhighway, makes a real difference this year, and it makes Bell the speed leader. To take advantage of these screaming speeds, you'll need a recent, flagship smartphone, but it's worth it.

While Bell and Telus share some network elements, they don't share everything. Our national results are population-weighted, so Bell's particular strength in the Toronto and Vancouver areas helped it pull ahead.

Regional competitors did very well in their coverage areas, though, with Videotron and Eastlink both winning awards. While MTS and Sasktel didn't win anything this year, their presence in Manitoba and Saskatchewan is clearly keeping prices down. Not so with the closest Canada has to a fourth national wireless carrier, Wind. While Wind improved its speeds nationwide this year, it's so far behind the leaders that they don't seem to feel the pressure. Wind's new LTE network, which may launch late this year or early next year, can't come soon enough.

2015 Winner: Bell

2014 Winner: Bell and Rogers (tie)

Nationwide

Southern Ontario: Bell

National and Southern Ontario

Southern Ontario: Bell

We tested five major metro areas in southern Ontario: Toronto, Hamilton, Kitchener/Waterloo, London, and Windsor, as well as brief stops in Brantford and Woodstock. While Bell and Rogers traded off in the smaller cities, Bell's strength in the dominant Toronto and Kitchener/Waterloo metro areas means that it's the best choice for southern Ontario as a whole. (It also matters that where Bell won, it did so by a lot, but where Rogers won, it did so by a little.) Speeds across southern Ontario as a whole are spectacular: Bell reached over 100Mbps on average in Kitchener/Waterloo, which is faster than most people's home Internet connection.

Wireless users' greatest complaint in southern Ontario isn't speeds, but pricing. The major carrier rates in Ontario are higher than they are in Quebec, Nova Scotia, PEI, Manitoba, or Saskatchewan. The one true low-cost player, Wind, has steadily improving coverage, but struggled to reach our 5Mbps threshold for a decent download connection at many locations.

2015 Winner: Bell

2014 Winner: Bell

Southern Ontario

Toronto: Bell

Toronto

Toronto: Bell

We tested 20 locations across the grand sprawl of the GTA, from Oakville all the way out to Richmond Hill. We found coverage in Toronto to be as good as in any US city, and speeds, by and large, to be faster. But with no truly competitive fourth carrier, prices in Toronto stay high.

Canada's metropolis has been dominated by Bell for two years now, thanks to two key network technologies: LTE band 7 and tri-band carrier aggregation. By binding three disparate bands of spectrum into one virtual superhighway, Bell claims to be able to provide 290Mbps download speeds. Rogers is a step behind when it comes to carrier aggregation, so it shows slower speeds.

Telus shares Bell's radio network, but not some core elements linking its network to the larger Internet. That meant Telus has similar performance to Bell, but is marginally slower (for instance, ping times, which affect how quickly pages load, are generally shorter for Bell in the East than in the West, and for Telus it's the reverse).

That said, plans on Telus can be a little bit cheaper than on Bell, too, and the trade-off seems appropriate: plans on the Telus-based Koodo system tend to cost $5 less than Virgin (on Bell) or Fido (on Rogers).

Wind is the only true discount carrier in Ontario, and it isn't having the same effect of keeping prices down that you see with competitive carriers in Quebec and Saskatchewan. That's because Wind's network is really slow. Within Toronto itself, it isn't that bad in terms of reliability, but we got average speeds that weren't enough to stream video, and that the government says don't qualify as broadband. Wind's upcoming LTE launch needs to change all that.

2015 Winner: Bell

2014 Winner: Bell

Toronto

Toronto

Hamilton: Rogers

Hamilton

Hamilton: Rogers

The Hamilton/Burlington area bleeds into the GTA, so we drew the line for our 12 Hamilton area tests at the Burlington border. Bell didn't show the spectacular speeds in Hamilton that we saw in Toronto. That put Rogers slightly in the lead, making it the fastest carrier in Hamilton.

Wind's lack of LTE keeps its average speeds below the 5Mbps the government defines as broadband. As a result, the Big Three don't seem to be treating it as much competition; Ontario has some of the highest wireless prices in the country. With Shaw as its new owner, Wind's launch of an LTE network next year will hopefully start to change things.

2015 Winner: Bell

2014 Winner: Bell

Hamilton

Hamilton

Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge: Bell

Kitchener

Kitchener, Waterloo, and Cambridge: Bell

Canada's Silicon Snowbank is the fastest overall wireless city we found nationwide. Our 14 tests took us from the bottom of Cambridge to the top of Waterloo, making pilgrimages to Google headquarters, BlackBerry, and the UW campus, where I first heard a Barenaked Ladies album in 1994. Our fastest test spot was in a parking lot on Hemlock Street in Waterloo, probably because there was a clean line of sight to the cell tower. We got 250Mbps on Bell there, faster than any connection we've ever seen in the US or Canada.

As we saw in Toronto, Bell and Telus have much higher speeds than Rogers in Kitchener/Waterloo. As Bell and Telus share radio towers in the area, the two networks had very similar performance, although Bell was slightly faster overall.

The crazy speeds we saw in Kitchener/Waterloo put even more of a focus than usual on prices, though. Bell is giving you 100Mbps down, on average. If you have a 5GB plan, you can use that up in seven minutes. And in Ontario, right now, the only alternative is to switch your rocket sled for a donkey cart: Wind charges much less than the major carriers, but it's one twentieth of the average speed Bell provides.

2015 Winner: Bell

2014 Winner: Bell

Kitchener

Kitchener

London: Rogers

London

London: Rogers

Rogers is the fastest overall carrier in the London area, but it doesn't have the fastest average download speeds. That's because consistency matters, a lot, and Rogers came out far enough ahead of its competitors on consistency and reliability to make a difference.

So hey, what happened, Bell? London is a huge sprawl, and we tried to distribute our test locations across the whole area. While Bell and Telus did very well in the central city, Rogers was more reliable in the rural far north and far south of the metro area. It probably won't surprise you to know that Wind had trouble with coverage in those areas, too.

2015 Winner: Telus

2014 Winner: Rogers

London

London

Windsor: Bell

Windsor

Windsor: Bell

In our four years of testing wireless networks in Canada, Windsor has always been one of the slower cities. My guess is that it's because the carriers need to keep things a little low-key to prevent from interfering with their bigger partners across the river. The speeds we see in Windsor would actually be considered very good if we were in the US, but Canada holds a higher standard.

Bell and Telus share a radio network in Windsor, so their performance is very similar. Bell wins through a combination of two things we saw in several southern Ontario cities, though: higher upload speeds and less latency. Considering that none of the carriers appear to have a major technology advantage in Windsor the way Bell does in Toronto, it was surprising that Rogers ended up so far behind.

As we've seen elsewhere, Wind is not competitive in Windsor, and it's not just about the speeds. We had blocked and dropped connections on Wind right in the center of the city. That's more likely about lack of capacity than lack of coverage, so hopefully some investment from Shaw can help with that.

2015 Winner: Bell and Telus (tie)

2014 Winner: Bell

Windsor

Windsor

Ottawa: Videotron

Ottawa

Ottawa: Videotron

Canada's capital city is the only major one with five viable wireless carrier choices: Bell, Rogers, Telus, Videotron, and Wind. And guess what? Competition matters. Videotron not only has the best network in the Ottawa area (sharing many network elements with Rogers, which is in second place), it charges much less than the majors do: $66 per month for a 6GB plan, as opposed to $105 per month for 5GB from Rogers and Bell.

There's no downside here. Videotron had the highest peak and average speeds in the Ottawa area, along with solid reliability. Its plans include domestic roaming, so when you leave the Videotron network—for instance, by going south or west—you'll be on one of the other LTE networks at no extra charge. It's a killer deal. Wind comes out decently in terms of metro area coverage, and it offers some very cheap plans, but speeds are one tenth of what Videotron serves up.

Of the other major networks, Rogers comes out in the lead, as it has in previous years throughout Ottawa and Quebec.

2015 Winner: Telus

2014 Winner: Rogers

Ottawa

Ottawa

Montreal: Videotron

Montreal

Montreal: Videotron

We took 20 samples across the sprawling Montreal metro area, including the suburbs of Laval and Brossard.

Quebec's local communications goliath, Videotron, dominated all of our Quebec cities and metro areas this year. Montreal and the island suburbs, Laval, and even smaller cities like Drummondville and Trois-Rivieres—they're all great places to use Quebec's local LTE carrier. Videotron especially excelled with very low latency, which means Web pages will render very quickly. Rogers, which co-built its network with Videotron, took second place.

Videotron is also keeping prices down in Quebec. To compete with Videotron's $66, 6GB plan, the major carriers are offering 6GB plans for $75. (You should still go with Videotron.) In Ontario, meanwhile, where there isn't such a strong competitive player, similar plans sell for $105.

The price you pay may be in not seeing some of the spectacular peak speeds you see in other metro areas. While we saw speeds up to 250Mbps in Toronto, Montreal peaks at 100-150Mbps—still fast, to be sure, just not as fast.

2015 Winner: Videotron

2014 Winner: Rogers

Montreal

Montreal

Quebec: Videotron

Quebec

Quebec: Videotron

As we saw in other Quebec cities, local carrier Videotron takes the lead in Quebec City. A major strength I'd like to call out here are Videotron's consistently low ping times, which mean that Web pages may render faster than they would with other carriers.

The carrier's slightly lower reliability score is largely because we hit a Videotron dead zone during the romantic dinner our tester was having on Rue Saint-Joseph Est in Saint-Roch, but Videotron matched or came out ahead in reliability everywhere else.

Videotron is also keeping prices down in Quebec. To compete with its $66, 6GB plan, the major carriers are offering 6GB plans for $75. (You should still go with Videotron.) In Ontario, meanwhile, where there isn't such a strong competitive player, similar plans sell for $105.

The price you pay may be in not seeing some of the spectacular peak speeds you see in other metro areas. While we saw speeds up to 250Mbps in Toronto, Montreal peaks at 100-150Mbps—still fast, to be sure, just not as fast.

2015 Winner: Videotron

2014 Winner: Rogers

Quebec

Quebec

Winnipeg: Bell and Telus

Winnipeg

Winnipeg: Bell and Telus (tie)

The prairies are slow. While Manitoba and Saskatchewan have some of the country's lowest mobile plan prices, thanks to vibrant local competitors, they also have some of the slowest networks. I'm especially concerned about the Rogers performance I saw this year—while Rogers and MTS won our two previous awards in Winnipeg, 30 percent of our 318 tests this year on the Rogers network fell below the 5Mbps government definition of broadband.

To the rescue ride Bell and Telus, which share a network in Manitoba and got equal scores in our overall ratings. Neither network delivered spectacular peak speeds, but they gave a very consistent broadband experience across our test locations.

There's still one major reason to go with MTS, though: It has an unlimited plan. While the carrier's very presence keeps prices down for Manitobans, most people in the rest of the country don't even get the option of unlimited LTE, which people in Winnipeg can get for $86.50 per month. For a limited-use plan, meanwhile, the best value is Bell's 6GB plan at $60 per month. That costs $105 in Ontario.

2015 Winner: MTS and Rogers (tie)

2014 Winner: MTS

Winnipeg

Winnipeg

Saskatoon: Bell

Saskatoon

Saskatoon: Bell

Saskatchewan has some of the lowest wireless prices in the country. Both Rogers and Bell offer 5GB plans for $55 per month, which is around half what folks in British Columbia and Ontario pay.

The province doesn't match the speeds we see in some other parts of the country, though, and the results of our Saskatoon tests were a little odd. For instance, Rogers had noticeably faster download speeds than other carriers, but failed to perform on uploads, with such a huge differential that Bell took the lead as the fastest mobile network in the city.

There's very little overall difference between the carriers here, in part because Bell, Telus, and Sasktel all cooperate on their networks, so you might as well shop on price. Bell's $55 5GB plan, or its $48 5GB plan on its Virgin brand, is probably the best deal.

2015 Winner: Telus

Saskatoon

Saskatoon

Regina: Telus

Regina

Regina: Telus

Telus, the dominant carrier in the West, won Regina with a noticeably snappier overall Internet experience than its competitors. Not only does it have the best average download speeds, it has the lowest latency, which means that Web pages may appear more quickly than they do on other carriers. Rogers, especially, really struggled with latency in Regina.

In general, Regina was considerably faster overall than Saskatoon, with more consistent network performance. Some common factors jumped out, though. Rogers appears to be juicing up its downloads at the expense of uploads all over Saskatchewan, and Sasktel is focusing on having as consistent an experience as possible, as opposed to trying to beat others' peak speeds.

While wireless prices are lower in Regina than they are in much of the country, Telus and Sasktel charge more than Rogers and Bell do. For the deep-pocketed, Sasktel also offers the ultimate holy grail: unlimited LTE data, which most people in the country can't get. It costs $105 per month, though. If you're shopping by price, Bell's Virgin brand is a great value in Saskatchewan, with a 5GB plan costing only $48.

2015 Winner: Telus

Regina

Regina

Halifax: Eastlink

Halifax

Halifax: Eastlink

Reliability matters. Eastlink, Nova Scotia's local carrier, has won our Fastest Mobile Network award in Halifax and Nova Scotia for each of the past three years, and it did it again—this time, through reliability.

While Bell showed faster average speeds, what struck us about Eastlink in Halifax, was that it never hit a dead zone or a slow spot: It offers a completely reliable wireless broadband experience. The carrier's excellent performance on PEI gave it another plus.

Eastlink's plans are also cheaper than the nationwide carriers. Its $80 5GB plan compares well with Bell's $105 5GB plan and Virgin's $90 5GB plan. Unfortunately, Eastlink doesn't have much LTE coverage east of Antigonish. In eastern Nova Scotia and on Cape Breton Island, Bell may be a better choice.

2015 Winner: Eastlink

2014 Winner: Eastlink

Halifax

Halifax

Prince Edward Island: Eastlink

Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island: Eastlink

Prince Edward Island is highly rural, and although we focused on Charlottetown, we tried to distribute some test locations across the center of the island as well.

We found that just like in Nova Scotia, local carrier Eastlink offers the best experience. In both cases, it's not about the highest speed; both Bell and Telus (who share parts of their networks) have higher average download speeds. Rather, Eastlink has an unusually reliable, consistent network, with solid speeds that have relatively little variation. The difference in ping times is also notable: with Eastlink's shorter pings, Web pages may load faster than they do on other carriers.

Eastlink's plans are also cheaper than the nationwide carriers. Its $80 5GB plan compares well with Bell's $105 5GB plan and Virgin's $90 5GB plan. While Eastlink doesn't have much of a network across the bridge in New Brunswick, its plans include nationwide roaming onto other networks.

Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island

New Brunswick: Bell and Telus (tie)

New Brunswick

New Brunswick: Bell and Telus (tie)

We tested three cities in New Brunswick: Moncton, Fredericton, and Saint John, taking between four and six samples in each city. We also drove up to Miramichi, and stopped there for a while.

Bell and Telus share a network in New Brunswick which is managed by Bell. That led to Bell winning in Moncton and Saint John, and Telus winning in Fredericton and Miramichi. And that led to a tie for the province.

One thing can very clearly be noted: especially outside the cities, the Bell and Telus network is superior to Rogers. We got higher download and upload speeds on Bell and Telus than Rogers, and outside the cities, we saw significantly more LTE coverage on Bell and Telus than on Rogers.

New Brunswick's rural nature and lack of a fourth carrier make for slow speeds and high prices. That may be changing soon, though. Eastlink has started up in New Brunswick with, right now, a very small, LTE-only network that only works with iPhones in Moncton and Saint John. We couldn't test it, as we use Android phones. But as it develops, it may offer a good alternative to the major carriers and it may bring prices down somewhat, as we've seen on PEI.

2015 Winner: Bell

2014 Winner: Bell

New Brunswick

Calgary: Rogers

Calgary

Calgary: Rogers

In our network awards, symmetry matters. While most of what people do online is downloading, our Snapchat/Instagram culture means upload speeds are relevant, too. So while downloads are worth 40 percent of our score, uploads are worth 20 percent.

This explains why Rogers gets the award in Calgary, even though it lacks the technology that is pushing Bell and Telus to spectacular download speeds. In our tests throughout the Calgary area, we found that Rogers' faster upload speeds made just enough difference to push it into the lead.

Calgary is a fast town in general, with very good wireless coverage. Everyone's bringing their A game. Even Wind, which has average download speeds one tenth of what Telus offers, is faster in Calgary than it is in southern Ontario.

The flip side of high speeds is high prices. Alberta's wireless rates are the highest of the prairie/mountain provinces, with 5GB plans going for $90-$105 per month. You'll pay $40-$50 less in Manitoba or Saskatechwan, perhaps because MTS and Sasktel offer stronger competition than Wind does.

2015 Winner: Telus

2014 Winner: Bell

Calgary

Calgary

Edmonton: Rogers

Edmonton

Edmonton: Rogers

Edmonton is a perfect example of how testing can show things that advertising may not. While Bell and Telus have higher peak speeds and newer technology in Edmonton, we found faster results with Rogers all around, including with downloads.

Bell and Telus share radio towers, but Telus came out ahead in part because its core network is here in the West, so it offers lower latency than Bell does in Western cities. (Bell returns the favor in Ontario.) That can make Web pages feel snappier.

We tested all throughout the metro area, including suburbs like Sherwood Park and Spruce Grove. That's where Wind really fell apart, with little native coverage outside the 216 Ring Road. While Wind offers great rates, it's clear the major carriers don't see it as much competition, because they're able to charge very high prices in Alberta. Hopefully new investment on the back of Wind's purchase by Shaw can change that.

2015 Winner: Telus and Rogers (tie)

2014 Winner: Bell

Edmonton

Edmonton

Vancouver: Bell

Vancouver: Bell

Bell surprised us by taking the crown from Rogers this year. But we should have seen this coming: Vancouver is one of the tri-band carrier aggregation markets for Bell and Telus, where the companies can combine three different spectrum bands for spectacular download speeds. Beyond scoring insane peak speeds, this doesn't actually make a huge difference in Vancouver, but it makes just enough difference for Bell to pull ahead of Rogers.

As Bell and Telus share radio towers, they offer very similar network performance. Bell came out consistently ahead of Telus on every measure, though, which may reflect congestion in the carrier's core network.

Wind did better in Vancouver than in the East, and it was relatively reliable. Still, though, its lack of LTE makes it one tenth the speed of the leaders. Perhaps as a result, the major carriers charge more than double Wind's rates, making BC wireless prices some of the highest in the country. While Wind charges $40 per month for 5GB, Bell's Virgin brand charges $90. Wind's new LTE network, which is supposed to debut next year, will hopefully inject some competition.

2015 Winner: Rogers

2014 Winner: Rogers

Vancouver

Vancouver

Victoria: Rogers

Victoria

Victoria: Rogers

Rogers maintained its lead in Victoria this year, where Bell and Telus appear to lack the extra technology bump that we saw in Vancouver. Although Rogers doesn't have the fastest download speeds overall, it won by showing a huge difference in latency, which is the time Internet requests take to get answered. Latency makes a big difference with Web pages, which are typically made of many small requests. All three carriers did very well at providing a consistent broadband experience, defined by the government as delivering connections over 5Mbps down.

Victoria has no fourth carrier to offer wireless competition, though, so local residents have no choice but to pay very high rates. 5GB with one of the major carriers in Victoria costs $90-$105 per month, while it's only $40 across the straits in Vancouver with Wind. In Victoria, the best value is probably the 4G Public Mobile from Telus, at $75 per month.

2015 Winner: Rogers

2014 Winner: Bell

Victoria

Victoria

Testing Methodology

Testing Methodology

This was our fourth year testing Canada, and we made a lot of changes to bring our system in line with what we're doing in the US right now.

While we used crowdsourced data in Canada in 2015, we went back to drive testing this year. Drive testing lets us compare networks using the exact same devices in the same place at the same time, eliminating any variables based on device type. This is especially meaningful in Canada because the latest network technologies require newer smartphones. Our partners at Ookla are also doing crowdsourced awards now (with a very different methodology), so we thought we could add much more to the conversation by putting wheels on the road.

Our software this year came from Ookla, the creators of Speedtest.net. (Ookla is owned by PCMag's parent company, Ziff Davis.) The software was loaded onto Samsung Galaxy S7 phones for all the carriers except Wind, which used an HTC One A9 phone.

Running every three minutes, Ookla tests uploads and downloads, as well as ping times to a nearby, randomized, neutral (non-carrier) server. The software locks the phones together so they are all pinging against the same server in any given test.

We stopped at a range of locations for at least 15 minutes each, in each city tested. We averaged the data in each location, then averaged the locations together for an overall city result. The aggregated data from traveling between the test locations counted into the overall averages as two more locations. Our national score is an average of the city results, weighted by the population of each metro area as of the 2011 Census. In other words, Toronto and Vancouver got a lot more weight than Windsor and Regina. Our two regional scores, for southern Ontario and New Brunswick, are also population-weighted averages of the cities we tested in those areas.

We tested mostly during business hours, from July 25 through August 16, 2016. We visited different cities on different days. We ended up with about 19,000 data points, which we processed through a MySQL database and summarized on an Excel 2016 spreadsheet.

The PCMag Speed Score

The PCMag Speed Score is a weighted average that looks at six components of the mobile data experience. Most people download more than they upload, so downloads account for 40 percent of the score while uploads account for 20 percent.

Ping time, which measures the time it takes for an Internet server to respond, can be even more important for Web browsing than raw download speed, as Web pages tend to consist of many small files. So we devoted 20 percent of our score to responsiveness, and that made the difference in several cities.

Since most mobile Internet usage is Web page downloads or small-screen video streaming, it's just as important to have a consistent experience as a fast one. The CRTC defines broadband, officially, as a download connection over 5Mbps speed. Smartphone users may not be able to see the difference between 20Mbps and 100Mbps, but they can definitely feel the difference between 2Mbps and 5Mbps. So we created a "threshold score" showing the percentage of downloads over 5Mbps, and the percentage of uploads over 2Mbps.

To create our reliability score, we counted the number of tests and divided by the number of non-zero LTE uploads and downloads. Stalled tests, or areas without LTE coverage, received reduced scores.

Here's how it all came together:

Average download speed (20 percent)

Downloads over 5Mbps threshold (20 percent)

Average upload speed (10 percent)

Uploads over 2Mbps threshold (10 percent)

Ping time (20 percent)

Reliability score (20 percent)

Carrier and Network Profiles

Carrier and Network Profiles

Where the US has four nationwide carriers, Canada has three nationwide carriers and five major regional carriers. Here's how each one performed in our 2016 testing.

Bell is currently Canada's best-performing wireless carrier. By combining a range of techniques, including carrier aggregation, Band 7 spectrum, cooperative agreements with Telus and Sasktel, and (potentially) purchasing MTS, it's built itself over the past two years into Canada's biggest and fastest LTE network. It charges premium rates for its premium service.

Eastlink has shown for several years how building a consistent, reliable network can really pay off. It's never offered the most spectacular peak speeds, but it wins every year in Nova Scotia (and now, in PEI) by having great reliability and low latency. Now, it's starting to expand into New Brunswick and Ontario, offering much-needed competition in NB. But its cutting-edge, LTE-only approach in New Brunswick currently only works with iPhones, and only in the Moncton and Saint John metro areas.

MTS has long been Manitoba's independent cellular provider. MTS's LTE network, built in cooperation with Rogers, has played a key role in keeping prices down in Manitoba. That's more important than sheer network performance, and this year, we found that its network was noticeably slower than Bell and Telus in Winnipeg. Competition in Manitoba could come to an end if Bell brings MTS into the fold, and Winnipeg residents could see their rates increase sharply.

Rogers is still the nation's largest carrier, and dominated our tests from 2010 through 2014. Then things began to change; while Rogers still has the largest amount of spectrum of any single wireless company in Canada, the Bell/Telus partnership has moved to the fore on performance outside of Quebec. That doesn't mean Rogers can't still step up. The carrier purchased more radio spectrum in 2015, in part through its acquisition of failed small carrier Mobilicity, and it should be rolling out faster service on that spectrum soon.

Sasktel is a publicly-owned crown corporation, with a perfectly decent network in Saskatchewan that it shares with both Bell and Telus. The company has done a very good job of keeping prices down in its province, where wireless rates can be half of what people pay in Ontario and BC. But it's feeling threatened by Bell's purchase of MTS, and it could soon be another domino to fall, resulting in higher prices throughout the province.

Telus shares much of its network with Bell, and its performance has improved over the past year as it's gotten access to both tri-band carrier aggregation and Band 7 spectrum. But we consistently saw Telus perform just a bit behind Bell, as we have in previous years, for reasons we can't quite put a finger on. That may not matter to consumers, as Telus is the most aggressive of the Big Three price-wise, with its discounted Public Mobile brand offering lower rates than Virgin and Fido.

Videotron is making a huge difference for wireless customers in Quebec. It's built a world-class network in cooperation with Rogers, and it's delivering it at lower prices than neighbors in Ontario and New Brunswick are seeing, dragging down everyone's rates in Quebec. The company looks like it'll be a vibrant regional competitor for years to come. But although the company bought spectrum in Alberta, Ontario, and BC in 2014 and 2015, execs told the Globe and Mail this June that they now don't intend to expand the network outside of Quebec.

Wind is currently stuck in the slow lane with speeds one-tenth of the major providers. The company says that it has been upgrading its network from HSPA+ 21 to HSPA+ 42, but we didn't see any real improvement in speeds over last year. And while Wind's coverage is better than we saw on our 2014 drive tests, especially in the GTA, it's still very limited; for instance, it doesn't cover western Edmonton suburbs. But now that it's owned by Shaw, help may be on the way. Wind has said its long-awaited LTE network may be arriving in late 2016 or early 2017. The new network runs on a new frequency band, band 66, so you'll need new phones to take advantage of it.

Other mobile phone brands you may see in Canada run on these networks. Here's how they shake out:

7-Eleven: Rogers

Chatr: Rogers

Fido: Rogers

Koodo: Telus

PC Mobile: Bell and Telus

Petro-Canada: Rogers

Primus: Rogers

Public Mobile: Telus

Virgin: Bell

There are a few smaller providers that we did not test, because they weren't available in the cities we surveyed: Sogetel in Mauricie, Tbaytel in northern Ontario, and Ice and Lynx in the far North. They're all minor players, however.

The Best Wireless Plans in Canada

The Best Wireless Plans in Canada

Canadian wireless pricing is confusing, and that may be on purpose: If the carriers keep you off balance, it's harder to compare their rates. So we took a look at a range of two-year contracts and month-to-month plans to help you choose the best one. Here's what we found.

• If you don't need data, you can get Canada-wide talk and text plans for $35 from Rogers' Chatr brand. There are cheaper plans out there, but they tend to have really limited minutes or messages.

• If you have a single line and you're bringing your own phone, Public Mobile and PC Mobile—which both use the Telus network—will often have the lowest rates.

• If you're OK with sticking with a two-year contract, and want to get a new phone every two years, that's still the best deal on major carriers. The carriers generally charge about $10 per month, or $240 over two years, for up to a $600 discount on a new phone.

• Fido/Virgin/Koodo also offer phone discounts, but they're less than the discounts offered by the mainline brands. For instance, Fido and Virgin charge you $360 over two years for a $500 discount on a new phone.

• Eastlink, Wind, and Videotron all charge less than the three major carriers do. Of course, if you choose Wind, you're picking a much slower network.

• Sasktel and MTS offer unlimited data. No other carriers do.

We've heard of a wireless black market offering plans from less expensive provinces to residents of more expensive territories, which shows how confusing the wireless market in Canada is right now.

The charts below show how widely rates vary from province to province. We compared bring-your-own phone prices, because those are the base prices; carriers each add pretty much the same amounts for phone subsidies. They all generally also offer discounts of $5 or so if you accept local-only or province-only rather than nationwide calling.

AB BC ON

Atlantic Canada

The Fastest Phones for Canadian Networks

The Fastest Phones for Canadian Networks

In Toronto, Hamilton, Halifax, and other cities, Bell and Telus are now using tri-band carrier aggregation, a system that ties together three disparate bands of spectrum into a broad information superhighway. There's a catch, though: Not all phones support the new technology. For one thing, it isn't built into any existing iPhone, although it should appear in the new iPhone model likely arriving this September.

To hit the fastest speeds, you'll want a phone that supports LTE Category 9. Currently, there are seven phones with Category 9 on the Bell and Telus networks, and we've reviewed all of them. Here's the rundown. While these reviews are all of the US versions of the phones, the pricing links should go to the Canadian versions of the devices.

HTC 10

HTC's latest flagship is the best smartphone for audio we've heard in a long time, although you need to pair it with some really good headphones for the advantages to come through.



Samsung Galaxy Note 5

The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 is over a year old, but it continues to be endlessly productive, thanks to its slick S Pen stylus.



Samsung Galaxy Note 7

The 5.7-inch Galaxy Note 7 is the best phone you can buy if you like to write notes and sketch with a stylus.



Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+

The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge+ is essentially a supersized S6 Edge, and there's nothing wrong with that.



Samsung Galaxy S7

Think of it as the Galaxy S6...S. Rather than reinvent the design like it did last year, Samsung focused on performance improvements in the S7, restoring crowd-pleasing features that were missing from the S6 (like a microSD slot) and boosting battery life.



Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge

The Galaxy S7 Edge is a striking standout of a smartphone, bringing back several fan-favorite features that were lost in last year's successful S6 Edge.



Sony Xperia X Performance

Sony's flagship has a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 820 processor, a 23-megapixel rear camera, and a waterproof build, which places it on a similar level as flagships from HTC, LG, and Samsung.



Further Reading