According to last year's Canada's Internet Factbook, 86 percent of Canadians have broadband at home, and over 85 percent are more than satisfied with the speed they get. That's not simply Canadian politeness at work. Canada's broadband internet service providers (ISPs) are working hard to provide great service, and, as our results show, faster speeds all the time. Take a look at the fastest ISPs in the country this year, and we'll fill you in on the rest below.

WINNERS: The Fastest ISPs in Canada

MAJOR ISPs

Bell Canada

Now in its second year atop this list, Bell Canada's investment in fibre-to-the-home (under the Fibe brand) continues to pay off, especially for its 2 million-plus customers in central Canada. While the fight with Rogers for the top spot is constant, it is clearly Bell Canada's fight to lose.

ALL ISPs

Bell Aliant

Aliant is all about the Atlantic Provinces of Canada, providing service there even as it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bell Canada itself. Aliant's speeds are something to behold, and worth considering a move to the far east coast if your internet speed is paramount.

The Fastest ISPs in Canada

This is the first year we're doing something for our Canadian results that we've done for a long while with the US Fastest ISP results: we're splitting them. You can get a good look at the major ISPs in the country, which we define as those ISPs with over 500,000 subscribers. All the rest, big or small, we'll measure in a separate chart as long as they had at least 100 tests provided by our readers using the PCMag Speed Test.

The battle for the top spot in Canada usually boils down to two companies: cable provider Rogers, and Bell Canada. Rogers clung to the top spot for the most part through 2017. And while it did once again make a significant stride upward in it's PCMag Speed Index score, going from 87.9 to 110.9, it wasn't enough. The two ISPs that beat it last year beat it again in 2019.

With Bell Canada's investment in fibre, it has pushed speeds up and up, hitting a 122.1 PSI this year. Counting morer than 2 million users, Bell Canada is the clear winner of the major ISPs category. This is all very impressive, considering that Bell Canada was only in sixth place on this list back in 2017. Also, our data doesn't even differentiate Bell Canada's different offerings from fibre down to DSL copper connections—yet still, with a potential mix of fast and slow connections, they beat the rest.

Not that Bell Canada can afford to rest on its maple-leaf laurels. Rogers is only 11 points behind.

The rest of the major ISPs saw increases in their score with the exception of Videotron, which went down about five points, and Cogeco, which dropped a half point.

The other ISP that beat Rogers this year now falls just barely into that "all ISPs" category, as Bell Aliant has under 500,000 subscribers. But Aliant's customers are certainly the happiest in the land, with a speed index of 134.8 that can't be beat. That's a pretty amazing jump for Aliant, which last year at 88.0 was behind parent company Bell Canada. It probably eases Aliant's fears that its owner is the one most likely to do the beating next year, if that happens.

Much of this list is occupied by the same major ISPs you see in the first chart. Unlike with our US results, we don't get as much response from users of small, ultra-fast ISPs. Thus, we don't have enough of them with over 100 tests to include. Those that do make the cut either really embraced our test, or have a growing audience. For instance, new to the list this year in fifth place is Communicate Freely, a small locally owned fibre ISP in Port Perry, Ontario. So is Toronto-based Carry Telecom, aka Carrytel (though the latter made a brief appearance in our Best Gaming ISPs of 2019-Canada feature).

Canadian Provinces with the Fastest Internet

We don't get enough response from the low-population northern territories to include in our story, ever. Yet perhaps the people living in Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories are doing something more stimulating than shopping at Amazon.ca. We also, once again, don't have enough response from Prince Edward Island, the only one of the 10 provinces for which we don't have data. That said, it's interesting to see the scores available in the other nine.

The darker red indicates faster speeds above; hold your cursor over a province to see it's PCMag Speed Index rating. You can see Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick leading the way. While both certainly benefit from a major Bell Aliant customer base, our tests show plenty of high-speed connections from Rogers there as well that contribute to higher scores. The competition in the Atlantic provinces appears to be fierce for fastness. We should all live in a place with such ISP rivalry.

Our interactive chart above lets you compare 2019 vs. 2018 with a click on the tabs. The same states are in the lead, headed east to west, but you can see how the speeds have gone up in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia. Manitoba doesn't look it, but it also went up, albeit only about five points, to a PCMag Speed Index rating of 49.9.

The only province with a net loss in speed is Québec, which had a 97.3 PSI in 2018, but dropped to a 65.7 this year. This was the second-lowest of any of the provinces, only ahead of Manitoba's 49.9 PSI.

Curious about the top ISPs in the individual provinces? We don't have enough info to show them all (remember, we need 100 tests per ISP per location) but here's a quick rundown.

Alberta : Shaw—90.2 PSI

: Shaw—90.2 PSI British Columbia : Telus—87.2

: Telus—87.2 Manitoba : Shaw—93.4

: Shaw—93.4 New Brunswick : Bell Aliant—192.3

: Bell Aliant—192.3 Nova Scotia : Bell Canada—207.6

: Bell Canada—207.6 Ontario : Telus—144.4

: Telus—144.4 Québec : Bell Canada—121.3

: Bell Canada—121.3 Saskatchewan: SaskTel—57.0

Note: we don't have enough tests to show any individual ISP in Newfoundland and Labrador, despite having the best aggregate PCMag Speed Index ratings. Also worth noting, Telus doesn't have wireline fixed broadband in Ontario, so all those tests are likely from LTE wireless subscribers, and still managed a higher speed than the competition.

Canadian Cities with the Fastest Internet

The fastest cities change frequently, but it is a good indicator of where the top ISPs are building the best infrastructure to keep customers happy. Last year, the fastest PCMag Speed Index came out of Québec City, with an excellent 371.7 PSI. This year, the best is across the St. Lawrence in the neighboring city of Lévis, which features an unparalled PSI of 413.1 thanks to a multitude of connections from Bell Canada's Fibe customers.

Last year the top ten cities for speed featured some of the biggest municipalities in the country, including Toronto, Edmonton, and the capital of Ottawa. None of them could eek into the list this year. In fact, many are so far down, they barely register. That's a testament either to big companies moving into smaller suburbs, or small companies with fast fibre options increasing their customer base.

As we've seen in previous years, the list is still mainly towns in Ontario and Quebec. The exception is the hamlet of De Winton, Alberta, in the last slot. That village's combo of customers from Telus and Shaw with fast connections make it a worthy spot, if you want to live among only a couple thousand people slightly south of Calgary.

Methodology

To create this story we used results from 43,552 tests taken between June 1, 2018, and June 17, 2019, all using our PCMag Speed Test.

Results are only shown for ISPs or locations (or ISPs in specific locations) that had at least 100 tests. We look at the average throughput up and down, recorded in kilobits per second, which we divide by 1,000 to get to Megabits per second, or Mbps.

We take 80 percent of the download speed, 20 percent of the upload speed, and add those numbers to generate a PCMag Speed Index (PSI). That number makes it easy to perform an at-a-glance determination of exactly which ISP is the fastest, as well as make quick comparisons to results from previous years. (For more, read the full methodology in Fastest ISPs of 2019: United States.)

If your ISP is missing from our results, go run a PCMag Speed Test today. We'll include your tests in future versions of the Fastest ISPs in Canada.