GATINEAU – The full results of a first-of-its-kind independent, national study on broadband performance in Canada shows that Internet service providers (ISPs) largely meet or exceed their advertised download and upload speeds.
Participating ISPs in the survey (announced last year and for which preliminary results were made public in the spring), conducted by SamKnows and which was commissioned by the CRTC, included all the main wireline service providers in Canada, with the exception of Sasktel, which declined to participate, said the CRTC in a press release this afternoon.
The data collected will provide Canadians with a better understanding of Internet services, enable the CRTC to improve its future broadband policy-making and allow ISPs to improve their networks to better serve their customers, says the Commission. A second phase will be launched this fall, with the hopes of including more ISPs and Canadian volunteers, as the scope of the project expands.
Participating ISPs were: Bell Aliant, Bell Canada, Rogers, Cogeco, Eastlink, MTS, Northwestel, Shaw, Telus and Vidéotron and measurement devices, known as Whiteboxes, collected data from over 3,000 volunteers as part of this initiative to study broadband performance. To protect the privacy of participants, no information about their online activities was collected.
Other details from the press release say:
- Speeds measured correspond to those delivered to the home by the providers, and not inside the home. Factors inside the home such as a large number of devices used at the same time, faulty equipment and poor Wi-Fi connectivity may impact user performance.
- Other factors outside the home such as heavy traffic on a particular website, latency and packet loss may also affect performance.
- The results measured in Canada compare favourably to those measured in other countries, including the United States.
- Canadians interested in participating in next phase of the project are encouraged to submit a request at Measuring Broadband Canada.
- In addition to the ISPs who participated in Phase 1 of the project, the CRTC is engaging with the following, smaller, ISPs for Phase 2: Distributel, Nexicom, Primus, Teksavvy, VMedia, and Xplornet.
Click here for the Broadband Measurement Report.
