The CRTC is seeking a data service to monitor and measure competitive forces in the Canadian internet services market, following its new regulatory policy mandating wholesale access to the large telephone companies’ last-mile fibre networks across the country.
The telecom regulator has pre-identified Boston-based Opensignal as the supplier of the data service, but has issued an advance contract award notice (ACAN) to allow other interested suppliers to submit bids.
The CRTC and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) are looking to contract a company to provide timely and granular ISP market share data across Canadian markets, to support market intelligence and policy monitoring while reducing reporting burden on the industry.
The contractor will be expected to independently collect and compile internet subscriber data, and have the ability to track subscribers by company and brand at a minimum geographic granularity of “Forward Sortation Area (FSA).”
Requirements of the data service include: monthly updates for all ISPs; data visualization through an online ISP Subscriber Market Share Dashboard refreshed monthly, available to an unlimited number of users at the CRTC and ISED; data acquired and supplied by the contractor must be privacy-compliant; and proprietary methodology is acceptable, but data accuracy must be maintained. The CRTC and ISED will assess accuracy against their own annual and quarterly data.
The contractor must: provide access to the ISP Subscriber Market Share Dashboard; enable data downloads; and create custom areas per the CRTC and ISED’s specifications, including incumbent telecommunications and cable service provider areas (in-territory and out-of-territory, as defined in https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2025/2025-154.htm); rural and urban areas (https://www23.statcan.gc.ca/imdb/p3VD.pl?Function=getVD&TVD=113331&CVD=113332&CLV=0&MLV=2&D=1&adm=0&dis=0); First Nations reserve areas https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/subjects-start/indigenous_peoples; and the Far North (https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2022/2022-147.htm#_Far_North_1).
The proposed contract is for a period of one year, from Feb. 14, 2026 to Feb. 13, 2027, plus up to three optional one-year extensions.
Interested bidders have until Jan. 7, 2026 at 2 p.m. ET to submit a statement of capabilities demonstrating how they meet the contract requirements.
