But really, everyone is pretty good, winning in one metric or another…
SEATTLE — According to Seattle-based Ookla’s latest Speedtest Global Index, Telus was the fastest mobile operator among the top Canadian providers in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Using Speedtest Intelligence data from October to December 2020, Ookla gave Telus a speed score of 87.88 (calculated using results from devices built on modern chipsets). The next-highest speed score in Q4 2020 was awarded to Bell (84.51), followed by Rogers (73.05), Rogers’s flanker brand Fido (71.64) and Shaw’s Freedom Mobile (35.62).
In terms of latency, Freedom Mobile had the lowest latency at 27 milliseconds (ms) among top mobile providers in Canada during the fourth quarter, followed by Fido (28 ms), Telus (29 ms), and Bell and Rogers (both at 31 ms).
Bell came out on top in terms of both 5G performance and 4G availability. Bell showed the fastest median download speed on 5G at 228.99 Mbps during Q4 2020, compared to Telus’s 220.31 Mbps and Rogers’s 129.82 Mbps median download speeds on 5G.
By examining the percentage of a mobile operator’s known locations where devices have access to 4G LTE service, Ookla found Bell had the best 4G availability in Canada during Q4 2020 at 97.1%. Telus and Rogers weren’t too far behind at 96.9% and 95.5%, respectively.
Looking at overall consistency of operators’ performance, Fido achieved the highest consistency score in Canada during the fourth quarter, with 90.5% of its results showing at least a 5 Mbps minimum download speed and 1 Mbps minimum upload speed, according to the Speedtest data. Rogers had the second-highest consistency score at 88.3%, followed by Telus (84.4%), Freedom Mobile (84.1%) and Bell (83.2%).
On a regional basis, in Q4 2020, Bell was the fastest mobile provider in British Columbia, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador; Rogers was fastest in Alberta and Saskatchewan; Telus was fastest in Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick; and Fido was fastest in Nova Scotia.
Looking city by city, Edmonton showed the fastest mean mobile download speed (124.97 Mbps) among Canada’s most populous cities during Q4 2020. (Edmonton also had the fastest fixed-broadband mean download speed in the quarter, according to the Speedtest results for Canadian fixed-broadband providers, which we reported on yesterday.)
The next-fastest mean mobile download speeds reported in other Canadian cities are as follows: Calgary (117.10 Mbps), Vancouver (116.51 Mbps), Winnipeg (111.63 Mbps), Toronto (111.48 Mbps), Montreal (108.74 Mbps), Quebec City (103.84 Mbps), London (97.75 Mbps), Halifax (90.03 Mbps) and Ottawa (86.22 Mbps).
For more information about Ookla’s Speedtest results for Canadian mobile providers, please click here.
Highlights from the latest Speedtest Global Index, which revealed Canada ranked 10th worldwide in terms of mobile speeds in December 2020, can be found here.
