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Competition for internet subscribers is rising in Ontario as the top two providers vie to lure customers with ultra-fast internet plans, whereas Western Canada is seeing a slowdown in competition after a year of steep discounts.

BCE Inc. and Rogers Communications Inc., Canada’s two largest communications players, are duking it out in “speed-obsessed” Toronto after Bell’s infrastructure upgrades, Barclays analyst Phillip Huang noted to clients Monday.

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Over the summer, Bell installed fibre connections in enough neighbourhoods to compete on a wider scale with Rogers’ 1 gigabit per second internet speeds, which have been available for some time across Rogers’ footprint, Huang wrote.

“Broadband speeds that seemed out of reach merely a year ago are now increasingly accessible and affordable to the average consumer,” Huang wrote, adding that plans with speeds over 300 megabits per second are becoming mainstream.