Bell was the best performing network provider, while Rogers tumbled across several performance rankings, Ookla’s Q1 2023 mobile and broadband analysis, released yesterday, found.
But network providers delivered faster speeds across all of the categories, as measured by Speedtest.
Download
Bell was the fastest operator for both mobile and fixed broadband, with a download speed of 111.11 Mbps and 281.94 Mbps, respectively, recovering after it fell to Rogers (fastest broadband) and TELUS (fastest mobile) in the Q4 2022 Ookla report.
But download speeds improved for all three national operators, with Bell enjoying the biggest leap, from 192.18 Mbps to 281.91 Mbps for broadband download speed.
TELUS was the least improved mobile operator, as it only jumped from 100.53 to 102.47 in mobile download speed, although the performance increase in that category was rather modest for all operators.
Upload
Performance rankings remained stable for mobile upload speed, with Rogers maintaining the top spot with 13.14 Mbps, followed by Bell (11.12 Mbps) and TELUS (10.98 Mbps).
The rankings also remained unchanged for broadband upload speed, with Bell at number one, followed by TELUS, Shaw, Videotron and Rogers.
The performance increase was minor for mobile upload speed, but significant for fixed broadband upload speed. TELUS and Rogers improved the least in mobile upload speed, with a jump of 0.15 Mbps and 0.93 Mbps, respectively.
Bell again improved the most, going from 156.80 Mbps in Q4 2022 to 235.72 Mbps in broadband upload speed.
Furthermore, all carriers were practically identical in Consistency, which measures the percentage of a carrier’s measured samples that meet minimum thresholds for download and upload speeds (at least 5 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload overall; 25 Mbps/3 Mbps for 5G).
But Bell snatched the Consistency crown from Rogers in fixed broadband speed.
5G
Bell, TELUS and Rogers maintained their positions in fastest median 5G download speed among national mobile providers in Canada, as in Q4 2022, but all three national operators improved their performance.
Provinces and Cities
Alberta had the fastest median mobile download/upload speed, followed by Ontario and New Brunswick (NB), which also nabbed the fastest broadband download/upload speed.
Interestingly, Rogers was the speediest mobile operator in Alberta (also in Calgary) where TELUS is the dominant provider.
Newfoundland and Labrador (NL), which was number one in mobile download/upload speed in Q4 2022, fell to the seventh spot, but did better in broadband download speed, securing the second spot. Rogers, again, was the fastest broadband provider for NL and also NB.
The Northwest Territories and Yukon Territory remained last in mobile and broadband download/upload speeds, as in Q4 2022.
City speeds improved significantly, but performance rankings remained virtually stable, with St John’s nabbing top spot in mobile and second in broadband download/upload speed. Ottawa remained last in mobile download/upload speed.
Fredericton also remained number one in broadband download/upload speed, and Montreal stayed at the bottom.