Who needs 5G? Not urban Canadians. In Canada's major cities, we are now seeing average LTE speeds that exceed what we're seeing on Sprint's new 5G network in the US, showing that 4G technologies still have plenty to give.

In our seventh annual Fastest Networks Canada test, we drove through all 10 Canadian provinces, hitting 29 major and smaller cities to test speed and coverage on Bell, Freedom, Rogers, Sasktel, Telus, and Videotron.

For the third year, Telus edged out Bell as the fastest nationwide network. We've now seen each of the three major carriers take the crown: first Rogers, then Bell, now Telus.

Telus keeps winning because it shares a lot of its spectrum and towers with Bell, giving the two carriers a massive amount of shared resources. On top of that, Telus has a highly optimized core network for routing connections through the internet, which seems to have made the critical difference in some of our cities.

National Results

Peak speeds pretty much topped out last year, but average speeds have continued to increase. Nationwide, every carrier was at least 20 percent faster than it was last year, and we saw our first nationwide average speeds over 200Mbps.

Now, that's faster than anyone needs on their phones. But as always, speed is a proxy for capacity: More available speed on our test phones means more network capacity for a lot of people trying to watch Netflix at once.

While the difference between Bell and Telus is similar to last year's, there are many more ties in individual cities. I'm pretty sure that comes down more to a methodology change of ours than to a difference in performance. I go more into depth about that on our testing methodology page.

If you want to get those top speeds, it's important to use the latest flagship phone. We tested this year with the Samsung Galaxy S10, the fastest LTE phone currently available in Canada. Using Ookla Speedtest Intelligence crowdsourced data, we found the S10 to be a little less than 15 percent faster overall than the Galaxy S9 on Canadian LTE networks, and a good 30 percent faster than the Apple iPhone XS. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) So if you're living in a major city and you're frustrated with your network, upgrading your phone might be the solution.

Three Tiers of Canadian Carriers

Performance-wise, there are definitely three tiers of carriers at this point. Bell and Telus, which share many towers but operate their own core networks, are far ahead of their rivals on speed and capacity in most major cities. They're so far ahead, in fact, that I wouldn't be surprised if they start using some of their existing spectrum for 5G in the future; their band 7 urban spectrum, for instance, would work well with 5G.

Rogers and Sasktel are in the middle. Rogers says it prioritizes having a nationwide network with very consistent service. In the cities, it offers decent service that doesn't quite measure up to Bell or Telus. Sasktel actually runs most of the towers Bell and Telus operate on in Saskatchewan, so those three networks all have similar performance there.

Freedom and Eastlink bring up the rear. Freedom's speeds have been improving over the past few years—going from 39Mbps down to 57Mbps down on average is no mean feat—but what they've really been focused on is improving coverage, adding coverage in buildings in Southern Ontario and adding more cities in the West, most notably several cities on Vancouver Island.

Eastlink is handicapped by its very limited spectrum allotment. While it's also been adding coverage in New Brunswick and Newfoundland, the download results we've seen from the carrier are the slowest of all.

The Urban/Rural Divide

We have more advanced mapping tools this year, so we are able to pay more attention to what is happening outside the major cities. With speeds and coverage in urban Canada so good, the carriers' real challenges are out in the sticks. We found that speeds suffered in rural Ontario, New Brunswick, PEI, and Nova Scotia. In Newfoundland, well, the network situation is just weird. Turn to our summaries by area for more details.

The recent auction of 600MHz spectrum might help there. 600MHz is the lowest-frequency, longest-range spectrum that's ever been used for cellular in Canada. T-Mobile is leading the way with 600MHz in the US, which it has used to extend rural coverage. In this year's auction, most of the spoils went to Rogers, but all of the large players other than Bell got slices.

At 600MHz, 5G has no less coverage than 4G and about 30 percent better speed, so Rogers may use its new bounty to dramatically improve connectivity in the small-town and rural areas that really need it.

Take a look at the chart above for our national speed test winners, or click through for province-by-province results. When you're through, check out how different things are over in the US.

Testing Methodology

We changed our testing methodology up a bit this year, with mixed results.

As always, we invited all the Canadian carriers to participate. Bell, Freedom, Rogers, SaskTel and, Telus agreed. Eastlink declined. Xplore Mobile agreed, but we ran into technology problems while trying to test with its device.

Just like in the US, we used custom field-test software designed by Ookla, the creator of Speedtest.net. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) The software was loaded onto Samsung Galaxy S10 phones, chosen because Speedtest Intelligence says they are the fastest device family available on Canadian networks.

This year, we relied on tests run every four minutes to the nearest host in Ookla's Speedtest server network, which is usually run by the same carrier as the phone. In previous years, we also ran tests to off-network hosts run by Speedtest, to test broader internet connectivity, but we didn't do that this year. That resulted in our scores showing less differentiation between Bell and Telus, so we'll probably return to that plan next year.

We stopped at a range of locations within a metro area, for at least 15 minutes each. The number of locations varied by the population of the area. Very small towns got one or two stops. Midsize cities like Kingston and Fredericton got five or six. The big metropolises saw 20 or more stops.

Our national score is a population-weighted average based on 2016 metropolitan area census data from Statistics Canada. Results in larger cities, such as Toronto, receive more weight in the final score than smaller cities, such as Halifax.

We tested mostly during business hours, from August 7 through 31, 2019. We visited different cities on different days. We ended up with about 19,600 test runs, 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.

We altered the score this year to reflect how good the networks have gotten. Since we didn't drop off of LTE very often, we reduced the importance of that measurement from 30 percent to 20 percent, adding the remainder to average download speed.

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. Smartphone users may not be able to see the difference between 20Mbps and 100Mbps, but they can definitely feel the difference between 2Mbps and 10Mbps. So we created a "threshold score" showing the percentage of downloads over 10Mbps, and the percentage of uploads over 5Mbps. The carriers were so good at that, though, that we've also added a new line showing how frequently downloads were above 25Mbps. That 25Mbps threshold doesn't factor into the overall score, though.

Here's how it all comes together:

Crowdsourcing vs. Drive Testing

There are a lot of "fastest" awards out there. They're all correct, according to their own testing and methodology, and they all have something interesting to say.

In network testing, the main division is between crowdsourcing and drive testing. Right now, we think we're the only organization doing public drive testing in Canada.

Crowdsourcing, which is done by Ookla Speedtest and OpenSignal, relies on users to run speed tests on their own devices. With a big enough crowd, you can get a good picture of a network. Crowdsourcing is always happening, so it's up to the minute. And you don't have to have carrier cooperation. We dip into Ookla's crowdsourced data set to look at Eastlink's performance, for instance.

But crowdsourced apps often can't tell whether a test is indoors or outdoors, which makes for very different results. They may not do a good job of finding dead zones, if their users don't run tests in places that obviously have no signal. They may have bigger crowds with some carriers, or in some cities. And if a carrier throttles some users' data plans for overuse, it's difficult to tell in a crowdsourced report who's been throttled, and where the network is just slow.

Drive testing is what we do. Drive testing lets us compare carriers using the same device, in the same place, at the same time. This way we can eliminate variables and map out coverage on our route. It lets us make sure we have as much data as we want in each city, so we can be confident in our results. And it lets us serve small cities where there might not be enough of a crowd for the other testers to create good results.

The Best Wireless Plans in Canada

There's been a huge change in Canada's wireless plans in the past year. While the three major carriers still move in utter lockstep, an earthquake in the wireless market has led prices to plummet and data allotments to shoot upwards. If you have the option to change to one of these new plans, you really need to do so.

The big news is not actually "unlimited data." The major carriers now have "unlimited" data, but after a certain cap, it's throttled to speeds slow enough to be nearly useless. (It's nice not to get overage charges, though.)

The big news is just that prices are lower. Last year, 6GB on any of the major carriers cost $100 to $105 per month in most provinces. Now, 10GB costs $75.

Plan prices based on closest available options to 4-6GB plans from 2016-2018, 10GB plan in 2019. Big Three and Freedom carrier prices based on Ontario rates; Videotron based on Quebec; Eastlink based on NB/NF.

Inter-province prices have also been smoothed out a bit. Now that MTS is gone, so is the "Manitoba discount," and the Saskatchewan discount is gone too, even though Sasktel is still around. Only Quebeckers still get cheaper plans than the rest of the country, thanks to Videotron's strength as the dominant cable provider.

And the weird situation where the cheaper "flanker brands" were much more affordable per GB than the main brands is now gone. Now, Koodo, Virgin, and the like are primarily for lower-data users.

All plans are 10GB except Freedom, which is 12GB. Big Three prices for all provinces except Quebec; Xplore price is for Manitoba; Sasktel price is for Saskatchewan.

Big Three and Freedom plans are 15GB; Videotron plan is 14GB. Videotron's "first and last month free" promotion was not counted in to this chart; with it, the first year with Videotron comes to $70/month.

So, why now? A story from Global says the carriers are finally buckling to two kinds of pressure. For one thing, a Shaw-backed Freedom is much scarier as a competitor than the previous Wind Mobile was. Shaw has a lot of money, and it's marketing and expanding quickly.

But Global also points out that the CRTC is in the middle of a yearlong review of the wireless market, so perhaps the carriers are on their best behavior. The CRTC aims to release a new "regulatory framework" in 2020, which could include radical changes like demanding regulated wholesale rates for virtual carriers to be able to compete with the majors.

Needless to say, the major carriers really, really don't want that. They want the CRTC to conclude that the Canadian wireless market is vigorously competitive, and that no additional regulatory moves need be taken. So the carriers are going to be very nice, at least for a little while.

Vote For...Your Phone Bill?

Canadians are going to the polls on October 21, and as this story went to press, politicians have been weighing in on the high cost of wireless service in Canada.Justin Trudeau says he'll reduce bills by 25 percent if elected, in part by enabling more virtual operators, or MVNOs. MVNOs are independent companies that buy wholesale minutes from the big carriers at discounted rates and then sell them to niche markets. It's a popular way of doing business in the US, where names like Mint Mobile, Ting, Ultra Mobile, and Walmart Family Mobile are moderately well-known. But the sector is much smaller in Canada, with carriers generally hostile to wholesale clients who might undercut them. (There are a few exceptions, like 7-Eleven Speak Out Wireless and Petro-Canada Mobility, but they don't compete for heavy data users.)According to Global News, the NDP has proposed even more aggressive regulation, including price caps and an end to speed caps on "unlimited" plans. The Green Party says it will direct the CRTC to separate device payments from service payments. The Coneservatives haven't said much except to complain that what the Liberals are doing isn't working.WhistleOut has a good official guide to all of the parties' cell phone pricing platforms. And remember, whoever wins, that CRTC review is still lurking out there—although the winning party will certainly influence the results of that study.

The Best Wireless Plan Right Now

Now, the best wireless plan out there is probably a short-term promotion that I'm not seeing as I write this. Promotions pop up periodically, like Freedom's 100GB Big Binge Bonus.

But in terms of regular published plans, the best wireless plan in Canada right now is Telus' $75, 10GB Peace of Mind plan. With all of the major carriers moving in lockstep, and the low-cost brands being less value than they were previously, Telus' 10GB plan on Canada's fastest mobile network looks like the way to go.

If you live in certain provinces, you can get somewhat better deals. Xplore Mobile's 10GB rollover plan in Manitoba costs $65 and, for now, uses Bell's network. That's a nice little savings.

To get more savings, you're going to have to give up some network quality. Freedom offers 12GB for $50 right now, but your connectivity will be limited if you're outside of its metro coverage area. Videotron, in Quebec, offers 12GB for $58, but in Quebec's biggest cities, it's a firm fourth place in terms of network speeds.

It's safe to say that we may see major changes next year, too, but they're all up in the air based on what the CRTC decides. For now, that's anyone's guess.

What About 5G?

Here at PCMag, we've been spending the year tracking 5G as it rolls out across the US. It's been a wild ride, for sure. So it's reasonable that Canadians are asking, hey, when are we getting 5G?

First of all, urban Canadians aren't clamoring for 5G because their 4G networks have plenty of capacity. Verizon and Sprint are pushing urban 5G heavily in part because their 4G networks are getting congested. Our Fastest Mobile Networks US results show that in many places in Canada's big cities, the Big Three carriers are offering 4G experiences that are superior to Sprint's 5G. That takes some of the pressure off.

The Canadian 4G download speeds on this chart are from our tests; the 5G speeds are from Speedtest Intelligence crowdsourced data for August 2019.

That's isn't to say that Canadian technologists don't want to push things forward, or that 5G couldn't bring big advantages to Canada.

In congested places like a Toronto street after a Raptors game, 5G's greater number of addressable devices will mean fewer frustrating blocked connections. Out on Canada's farms, long-range 5G can enable smarter harvests by using massive numbers of environmental sensors without farmers having to maintain complex, short-range Wi-Fi networks. Down the road, Canadian developers could create great 5G experiences, but only if they have networks to test them on. Imagine Ubisoft Montreal giving you a real-world Assassin's Creed using augmented reality glasses, streamed from the internet thanks to 5G's low latency.

But the CRTC is behind the US when it comes to spectrum auctions, in part because of the board's practice of scheduling only one auction a year. 5G relies on many complicated sections of spectrum, and one auction a year just might not cut it.

At least the CRTC picked the right spectrum to start with. Next year, Canada will be auctioning 200MHz of 3.5GHz spectrum. This has better range and building penetration than the millimeter-wave spectrum most US carriers have been using, and Canadian carriers have already started setting up grids of cell sites appropriate for it. In Vancouver, for example, Telus has been setting up regularly spaced arrangements of small cells that could blanket neighborhoods with 3.5GHz.

Source: https://www.ertyu.org/steven_nikkel/cancellsites.html

For good 5G speeds, carriers should work with at least 100MHz blocks of 3.5GHz. Here's where another aspect of the Canadian wireless world comes into play: network sharing. The 200MHz on offer would best be divided into two blocks. Provided the carriers extend their sharing agreements, in many places, that could be Bell/Telus and Rogers, or Bell/Telus and Rogers/Videotron or such.

Canadian 5G will also be able to bond to and combine with 4G, offering speeds that I expect to be like what we're seeing in the UK and Switzerland right now—about a gigabit in urban areas.

These networks will probably launch in late 2020 or early 2021. This is fine, as 5G phone buyers really want devices with integrated chipsets, which aren't coming out until late in the first quarter of 2020.

Millimeter-wave spectrum auctions will follow in 2021. Consumer millimeter-wave equipment is a mess right now, a situation that will likely straighten out next year. Canadian carriers are already experimenting with millimeter-wave, and it would be great if they could launch in 2021 instead of 2022, but that would require the CRTC to move up its calendar.

The Rural Challenge

Canada's challenge at this point isn't how to deliver great speeds in big cities. It's how to get decent coverage to the 18 percent of the population who live in rural areas. That percentage is unevenly distributed across the provinces, too. Relatively few Ontarians and British Columbians live outside the major metro areas, but lots of people in the Atlantic provinces do.

In our 4G testing, that's where we've found weaknesses in all of the Canadian networks, whether it's Bell and Telus being weak south of London, ON; Rogers not even playing in most of Newfoundland; or all of the carriers being weak outside the major towns on PEI.

You should be looking to what carriers do with their new 600MHz spectrum to see if it helps there. This year's auction was for the longest-range, lowest-frequency spectrum appropriate for 5G. Rogers and Telus snapped up most of it, but the regional players each got some as well. The new 600MHz networks won't have spectacular, gigabit-plus speeds. But they have a chance of lifting rural areas out of the sub-10Mbps doldrums they've been languishing in.

Calgary/Edmonton

Telus operates most of the combined Bell/Telus radio network in Alberta, although Bell has some of its own supplementary towers, and they both use their own connections to the internet. With our new testing methodology, that didn't make a huge difference, as the two networks performed pretty much the same.

Calgary: Bell and Telus (Tie)

Honestly, everyone performed really well in Alberta this year. The 4G speeds we got off the Bell and Telus networks looked like the 5G speeds we've seen from Sprint's new 5G network in various US cities. It really shows how far 4G can go. Rogers, meanwhile, was slower than Bell and Telus, sure, but its speeds were higher than anyone really needs, and reliable enough to provide an excellent experience.

Freedom offers much more reliable coverage across Calgary and Edmonton than in past years, but it drops to roaming on the drive in between the cities, as you'd expect.

Edmonton: Bell and Telus (Tie)

Montreal/Quebec

Montreal/Quebec

Telus, for the second year, offers the best overall performance in both Montreal and Quebec City. As you can see from the charts, Telus and Bell—which share towers—have very similar overall performance, but Telus has optimized its core network to offer a download experience that's just a little bit better.

In both Ontario and Quebec, we saw a trend this year where Telus showed better performance in large metropolitan cities, but Bell had better performance in small cities and the countryside. While the two carriers share towers in most of Ontario and Quebec, they have different core networks and different phone software, and their different optimizations may explain the contrasts we see.

Montreal: Telus

Videotron's performance in Montreal for the past two years has been quite disappointing. Quebec's dominant cable provider has a deep bench of spectrum locally, and cooperated with Rogers in building its network. But it has been in a distant fourth place for the past two years. We were so confused by this that we checked other testers' results, and Ookla Speedtest Intelligence and OpenSignal also agree that phones on Videotron's network in Montreal have hit the brakes. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) Videotron and Rogers aren't saying.

Quebec: Telus

Kicked into engineering mode, our Videotron phone in Montreal never used more than one 20MHz carrier of band 4. While other carriers are using spectrum aggregation across multiple bands, Videotron seems to have stalled on that key technology. The carrier does offer cheaper plans than the others when you're doing a multiple-play with internet or cable, and coverage and reliability are excellent.

Sherbrooke: Bell

Trois-Rivieres: Bell

Out in Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivieres, our Bell SIM performed better. Rogers and Videotron were more consistent and competitive in these smaller cities, though. While Videotron had lower average speeds, we found dips and wobbles in Bell's network while Videotron's stayed rock solid for a more reliable overall experience.

New Brunswick

Bell operates the combined Bell/Telus radio network in New Brunswick, and it's the strongest carrier in the province. In Saint John, Telus performed better, perhaps because Bell's internet lines were just a little more congested than the connection Telus was using.

New Brunswick: Bell

Saint John: Telus

It's constantly impressive how much download capacity Bell and Telus have made available in some of the smaller cities in Canada, the three New Brunswick cities being a perfect example. Average speeds of 250Mbps or higher in a city of 50,000 people is pretty amazing. There's a fly in the ointment, though: These networks are not the best for content creators, with uploads too often not reliably exceeding 5Mbps.

Moncton: Bell

Coverage in New Brunswick was better overall than in Nova Scotia, but there are still some definite rural coverage problems. Rogers had issues on Route 3 south of Fredericton, and Bell had some problems further south toward St. Stephen.

Fredericton: Bell

Eastlink now offers service in New Brunswick on its own network, but its spectrum is so limited that it can't compete on speed. The carrier opted out of our testing this year, but crowdsourced Ookla Speedtest Intelligence data tells a pretty sad story of speeds: an average of 25.75Mbps down and 11.48Mbps up during the third quarter of 2019. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) While that's certainly usable, it doesn't really compete on speed or capacity with the three larger carriers.

Newfoundland

Newfoundland has an unusual wireless situation. Through most of the province, there's one physical network, and it's Bell's. Eastlink and Rogers both have small sets of towers, primarily in St. John's, but our testing shows that coverage is supremely limited; as soon we got to Torbay, or north or south of Petty Harbor, our Rogers phone flipped to roaming on Bell's network.

St. John's: Bell

So the question for Newfoundlanders really becomes, who gives you better access to Bell's network, which both Bell and Telus share? This year, the best bet is to go with Bell's brand. Bell has a firmer core network in the eastern end of the country, which resulted in ever so slightly better performance and let it take the crown.

As we've seen across the country, the difference between performance on the native Bell/Telus and native Rogers networks is vast. That top speed you see on the chart for Rogers was actually while roaming on Bell's network; the average speed is much more reflective of Rogers' overall performance.

On this map, native Rogers coverage is in red, while Extended Network coverage, which is on the Bell-built network, is in blue.

Eastlink didn't participate in our study this year, but its performance also tends to be slow. Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence says it averages 29.82Mbps down and 11.65Mbps up, reflecting its very limited spectrum. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) It does offer a slight discount from Bell's and Telus' low-cost brands Virgin and Koodo, though. For 7GB with unlimited talk and text, Eastlink charges $55 per month where Virgin and Koodo charge $65.

Nova Scotia

Bell operates the combined Bell/Telus radio network in Nova Scotia, which is by far the best and fastest network available in the province. (You can tell Bell runs the network because of those really low ping times—Telus has to go out of town to hit its server.) Yet in Halifax, we saw slightly better performance from our Telus SIM this year. That's probably because as the province's default carrier, Bell's internet lines are slightly more congested than Telus' are, allowing faster connections for Telus subscribers.

Halifax: Telus

Network quality in Nova Scotia really improved from last year, at least where you can get coverage. We're really impressed by performance in small-town Truro this year, where the Bell/Telus network averaged over 200Mbps—great for those college students at Dalhousie.

Truro and Rural NS: Bell

The real news this year is that we focused more on coverage while driving around Nova Scotia, and there are a depressing number of gaps in the province. A lot of it can get filled in by roaming, but anyone who spends much time in rural Nova Scotia knows about this. Our driver went to the Annapolis Valley area, and Rogers coverage was bad, to say the least. On the map below, the red dots are where our Rogers phone dropped to its "partner network," meaning roaming on Bell. Blue and green dots reflect where our Bell and Telus phones dropped coverage.

We didn't go to eastern Nova Scotia this year, but we surveyed that last year, and Rogers has very little coverage in Guysborough County.

Bell's network around Nova Scotia is superior, for sure, but we had problems with that one, too. In the rural areas west of Amherst, all of our phones periodically dropped out; ditto for the rural roads just west of Truro. There just aren't a lot of towers in either area.

Eastlink opted out of our tests this year. It has good coverage through Halifax and the Annapolis Valley, but it also neglects southeastern Nova Scotia. Using Ookla Speedtest Intelligence crowdsourced data, we saw it has average LTE download speeds of 41.16Mbps down and 9.66Mbps up in Halifax. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company.) Those speeds are certainly usable, but they don't compete aggressively on performance with the Bell/Telus network.

Ottawa/Eastern Ontario

Ottawa is the nation's most competitive wireless city, as it's the only place with five real carriers: Bell, Freedom, Rogers, Telus, and Videotron. Those are on four different sets of towers, too, making Ottawa's landscape really intense and the networks very differentiated.

Ottawa: Bell and Telus (Tie)

The combined Bell/Telus radio network is the best here by a long shot, and Freedom really struggled. We found the highest peak speeds with a Bell SIM, but frankly, the kinds of speed you get with either Bell or Telus (or Virgin or Koodo) SIMs are beyond anything you really need.

Cornwall: Bell

Kingston: Bell

Once you get out into smaller towns, Bell's network optimizations in eastern Ontario tend to show in better performance over Telus. That makes Bell the better bet in smaller towns in eastern Ontario.

Freedom has recently extended its coverage in eastern Ontario, but roaming is still far too common. Take a look at our drive along the 401 here. Yellow is Freedom native coverage, blue is roaming. Freedom has towers in Kingston, Brockville, and Cornwall, but significant gaps between them. And while we got solid Freedom coverage in Ottawa itself, our phone switched to roaming by the time we got to Carleton Place.

Prince Edward Island

Prince Edward Island is not Canada's most connected province. Overall speeds throughout PEI are slower than we found in most other locations, even in locations across eastern Canada like the various New Brunswick cities. Don't just look at the overall speeds here—look at the really low percentages of tests above our minimum speed thresholds.

PEI: Bell and Telus (Tie)

On PEI this year, we mostly focused on the south side, from Summerside to Charlottetown. Speeds were fine in Charlottetown itself, but in even nearby rural locales like Afton, things got bad pretty fast. Upload speeds didn't hit our thresholds pretty much anywhere outside the central parts of Charlottetown and Summerside. This map shows where download speeds didn't meet our threshold.

One of our themes this year is the big difference we're seeing between urban and rural Canada. We're focusing on that because the carriers have basically mastered 4G performance in urban areas at this point. But the difference between urban and rural performance is still stark, even in a relatively small province like PEI.

Regina/Saskatoon

There are two sets of towers in Saskatchewan: Rogers and Sasktel, with Bell and Telus using Sasktel's towers but differentiating with their own internet connections. Why does that matter? Look at those latency numbers. Since Sasktel is all-local, its network is more responsive, as opposed to requests having to go to Bell and Telus servers that may be farther away.

Regina: Bell and Telus

Bell seems to have optimized its network better than its competitors, offering a stronger overall experience this year in both of the major SK cities. But the competition is super tight, with Rogers far more competitive here than it is in some other provinces.

Saskatchewan has very competitive mobile plans, so you should pick your carrier based on its plan offering. They're all about equally as good as each other right now.

Saskatoon: Bell and Sasktel

Toronto/Southern Ontario

Telus wins in Toronto with a fast, powerful, and consistent network. Over three days of Toronto testing, we got terrific speeds, with peaks over 650Mbps on Telus in Toronto. That's significantly faster even than last year, when networks peaked around 500Mbps and averaged around 180Mbps.

These speeds are faster than anyone needs, but what we're really talking about is capacity. A network that can show these speeds in testing has a lot of capacity for many different people to surf or stream at once, which is important in a dense city like Toronto.

Toronto: Telus

Telus' win in Toronto basically came because we had various, sporadic problems with blocked connections on our Bell phone. Maybe it was a bad day for the Bell network, but the phone guttered out trying to connect to its server at various points throughout the GTA. We didn't see this behavior on the Telus phone, which means it was a blockage in Bell's core network.

Freedom has one huge advantage in Toronto: It's still the only carrier that works in underground TTC stations. It also works in some of the tunnels—the new north branch of line 1, along with the areas between Bloor/Yonge and St. Patrick. While other carriers' subscribers can tap into station Wi-Fi, the seamless connectivity Freedom subscribers enjoy can be a big deal down there.

That said, we'd like to see more consistent speeds from Freedom. We saw sub-10Mbps speeds in too many places, including key locations like the York U campus and Yorkville.

Hamilton: Bell

Kitchener: Telus

Brantford: Bell and Telus (Tie)

Guelph: Rogers

Outside Toronto, Bell and Telus—which share a lot of network equipment—traded off narrow wins depending on whose core network was better optimized for the time and place of testing.

We're not talking much about Rogers in this year's piece, even though it's still Canada's largest carrier, because it just soldiers on with a basically reliable network that has middling performance. It isn't bad, but it doesn't lead the way it did in the early days of LTE.

London: Bell and Telus (Tie)

Windsor: Telus

Once you get out of the GTHA, Rogers becomes significantly more competitive. Down in London and Windsor, as well as in the rural areas south of Hamilton, Bell and Telus were slower and Rogers and Freedom were, comparatively, faster. Rogers was also noticeably more consistent in smaller towns and rural areas west of Toronto. North of London, and along the 401 west of Woodstock, we saw consistently low speeds on Bell and Telus, and consistently decent performance on Rogers.

Vancouver/Victoria

Bell and Telus share much of their infrastructure in British Columbia, with a tight network of urban cell sites operated by Telus, and they split the winnings between our two major BC cities.

Vancouver: Bell

Our results on Bell in Vancouver topped out as some of the fastest in the whole country, nearly reaching 800Mbps. That's amazing for a 4G network—it's faster than Sprint's 5G network here in the US, and it shows what can be done on 4G with a lot of spectrum. (Average Bell and Telus average speeds in Vancouver are also faster than Sprint's average 5G speeds so far.) If you're living on the West Coast and wondering about 5G, we think for now you don't have much that you're missing.

Victoria: Telus

We'd like to call out Freedom for its expanding coverage and surprisingly good performance in these cities. Freedom now covers not just Vancouver and Victoria, but Nanaimo and Kelowna, at speeds and with reliability that approach Rogers. Freedom still lacks coverage in mountains and less populated areas, but at least it works on the road to Whistler.

Winnipeg

Strange things are afoot in Manitoba. With the purchase of MTS by Bell, there's a new carrier in the province—Xplore Mobile. Manitoba is now the only place in the country where all three Canadian carriers run their own sets of towers, making it the most competitive province by far.

Winnipeg: Telus

Telus won in Winnipeg with the highest speeds and lowest latency overall, but we want to call out how competitive things are here, and how there are a lot of good options. With more evenly balanced spectrum allocations, you can see that Rogers is better able to keep up with Bell and Telus than in the East.

Xplore is currently using Bell's network as it builds its own, so Xplore customers should get performance similar to the Bell column on our chart. There are reasons to sign up for Xplore instead, though. The old MTS unlimited data plan is truly dead, a casualty of the Bell/MTS merger. While Bell offers an "unlimited" data plan, it's really 10GB with brutal speed throttling after that.

Xplore, on the other hand, at least offers rollover data, letting you stash your data away in months you don't use it for months you do. The risk you take is that Xplore's access to the Bell network will expire around 2021, launching you onto Xplore's own network, which may have lesser performance. Of course, you can always switch back.

Further Reading