A survey of over 1,000 Canadians conducted by NetSpeed Canada uncovers just how Canadians living in different provinces experience their ISPs.
“Our goal was to compare internet cost, speed, and satisfaction rates across different Canadian provinces and determine the Canadian average,” says NetSpeed Canada founder Tomas Novosad.
He notes that a strong knowledge of the ISP landscape across Canada aided him in interpreting results.
As in other industries, competition and infrastructure were key drivers of efficiency. Among ISPs, a more competitive market frequently results in lower costs, better speeds, and enhanced customer satisfaction.
The Provinces With the Lowest and Highest Internet Costs in Canada
To determine who is paying less for internet, the survey asked customers to disclose whether they were paying less than $75 per month for their internet service.
Quebec was an easy winner, with nearly 76 percent of respondents enjoying low-priced service.
This may be attributable to the strong presence of Quebecor which owns brands like Videotron and Fizz. Both offer low prices on home internet. Faced with competition, the “Big Three” must reduce pricing to be competitive.
For example, Bell offers its Gigabit 5 1.5 GB package for $70 in Quebec. The same package costs $130 in Ontario.
With a national average of 57.25 percent paying $75 or less for home internet, Alberta achieved second place for low-priced internet with just over 58 percent of consumers reporting costs at or below the benchmark.
Consideration of home internet plans available indicates that spending $100 or more on an internet plan indicates high pricing.
The provinces where consumers were most likely to choose these packages are the Atlantic Provinces: New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
Despite being considered among the less economically affluent regions, nearly 26 percent of respondents reported costly internet subscriptions.
Putting this into perspective, the national average is just over 15 percent.
Although available plans seemed to be priced much as they are in other regions, the government’s Newfoundland and Labrador Connectivity Strategy indicates that a large percentage of the populace relies on remote or online work.
This would signal a preference for the faster upload and download speeds available from premium internet plans.
The province least likely to choose high-priced plans was Saskatachawan. Just over 6 percent reported choosing an internet plan costing $100 or more per month.
The Provinces With the Fastest and Slowest Internet Speeds in Canada
Respondents in British Columbia reported the fastest internet speeds in Canada.
Over 32 percent reported speeds faster than 500 Mbps, ahead of the national average of a little more than 28 percent.
This achievement may reflect government funding through the Connecting British Columbia and Connecting Communities BC programs and a partnership with the Canadian government that promised $830 million in infrastructure investment.
Ontario achieved second place approaching the 32 percent mark. With Ontario topping the list of provinces for economic growth, just ahead of BC, affluence and economic activity may contribute to the province’s love of high-speed internet.
Ontario is also home to Rogers, one of the largest internet infrastructure providers in Canada.
With strong infrastructure, and competition from Bell, which has the lead on fibre, more people have access to the fastest, and costliest, internet plans.
29.68 percent of Canadians report internet speeds under 100 Mbps, and Saskatchawan appears to be the place where things slow right down.
With nearly 48.5 percent reporting slow download speeds, it far exceeds the national average.
Comparatively low population density, limited internet infrastructure outside major centres, and the dominance of non-tech related professions are the likeliest contributors to Saskatchewan’s slower internet.
In major centres like Saskatoon, however, speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps are widely available to subscribers.
Interestingly, 35.25 percent of people in Quebec reported slow download speeds, and in this instance, infrastructure is not lacking.
However, there is a proliferation of well-priced plans in Quebec, and they rely on cable infrastructure, so it’s possible that more people here prefer cheap plans over faster ones.
The Provinces in Canada With the Highest and Lowest ISP Satisfaction Rates
The easygoing people of Saskatchewan are the likeliest to approve of their ISPs. 78.79 of people surveyed gave their ISPs the thumbs up, a considerably higher proportion than the national average of 66.13 percent.
Saskatchawan is home to Sasktel which holds about 70 percent of the market share.
The telecoms company, part-owned by the provincial government is, by all accounts, popular, with many residents declaring their loyalty to the local provider. Our figures appear to reinforce this opinion.
Quebec, with its proliferation of service providers and options, has the second-highest percentage of satisfied customers. 74.43 percent of respondents said they were happy with their service providers.
Once again, a local service provider may account for the high level of customer satisfaction.
Videotron, a subsidiary of Quebecor, reported that it had 1.9 million internet subscribers in 2022 out of a total of around 3.7 million households.
In addition, lower prices and competition between service providers could be leading to better overall service levels.
The province with the lowest ISP satisfaction rate was Ontario, beating the national average of 12.31 percent with its 15.84 percent customer dissatisfaction rate. The top providers here are Bell and Rogers.
Both telecoms have excellent infrastructure, and both vie for top spot for telecom complaints. In fairness, these two companies also have the lion’s share of customers in absolute numbers.
However, one in five complaints registered against telecom providers concern Rogers, and previously, Bell held the dubious honour of being most-complained-about.
Although our data contains insufficient detail to confirm or refute this, the dominance of Rogers, Bell and their flanker brands in Ontario may account for its high customer dissatisfaction rate.
12.99 percent of respondents in the Atlantic Provinces were unhappy with their ISPs, earning this region second place in the dissatisfaction stakes.
Although the reason for this is unclear, a large rural population (41.9 percent in Labrador and 54.9 percent in Prince Edward Island) may experience less-reliable service owing to their location.
Additional Takeaways
A visit to online review sites and forums is enough to create the impression that a great many Canadians aren’t happy with their ISPs.
Although we were aware that the disaffected are likelier to take to public platforms to vent, we were pleased to see that most Canadians are not unhappy with their service providers.
The same figures appear to indicate that internet services are, by-and-large, reliable across all but the most remote parts of Canada.
Our findings on download speeds and pricing were somewhat more predictable. It should be remembered that pricing and speed are generally linked, with more costly plans providing faster speeds.
The fastest plans offer speeds exceeding those that an ordinary home internet user would ordinarily require.
It’s therefore no surprise that many Canadians are willing to opt for cheaper plans with adequate speeds rather than choosing the costliest and fastest plans available.
As expected, competition in certain provinces led to better pricing, even from the bigger telecoms. It’s therefore regrettable that the initial proliferation of reseller brands have mostly been acquired by the Big Three.
However, there is still hope for affordable internet in Canada following the CRTC’s August 2024 commitment to stimulate competition following recent declines.
“Today’s decision builds on our work to ensure that Canadians have access to more choice of high-quality Internet and cellphone services at lower prices,” said CRTC CEO Vicky Eatrides.
NetSpeed Canada will be monitoring developments with interest, and will look forward to updating this research as the ISP landscape develops and changes.
