5 things revealed in OpenSignal’s State of Canada’s Mobile Networks report

According to OpenSignal, Canada is becoming

a land where 4G networks are a ubiquitous part

of our digital lives. The wireless coverage

mapping company’s recent report, State of Mobile Networks: Canada (January 2016) took

the results from more than 15,600 Canadian

OpenSignal users, and examined the

performance of Canada’s Big 3 nationwide

operators over a three month period between

September and November of last year.

4G network performance is consistent among major carriers

According to the OpenSignal report, Canada’s Big 3 — Telus, Bell and Rogers — rank pretty much the same when

it comes to 4G network performance.

One possible reason for this, the report notes, is due to network-sharing agreements — Telus and Bell share

towers and infrastructure across Canada, while Rogers has struck similar deals with many regional operators like

Videotron in Quebec and MTS in Manitoba.

Carriers are focused on low latency while they gear up for voice-over-LTE

Major carriers in

Canada are currently

working on improving

their networks for

voice-over-LTE,

according to the

report.

Canada’s regional network providers are delivering strong performance overall

According to OpenSignal, regional providers such as

Videotron and SaskTel delivered strong network

performance compared to the major carriers. While the

report is careful not to make direct comparisons, it noted

that Videotron and SaskTel both averaged LTE speeds greater than 27Mbps in their respective

provinces. Videotron in particular, scored high for its 4G coverage in Quebec, connecting its

customers to an LTE signal 78 per cent of the time.

High-availability networks are generally consistent across the country

Canada has a vast, spread out population but the network

experience is typically the same, according to the report,

whether you are in Yellowknife, Vancouver, Halifax or Toronto.

Access to a 4G signal in Canada is an easy thing to do most

of the time, the report revealed, noting that Rogers in

particular won this category hands down, supplying an LTE

connection 80 per cent of the time.

Network speeds are evenly matched among Canada’s Big 3

OpenSignal also measured the

average download speed on each

network on 3G connections.

Tracked over a period of three

months in 2015 — September,

October, and November — it

reveals that Canada’s Big 3 are

evenly matched: Bell ranked first at 3.97 Mbps, followed by Rogers (3.12Mbps) and Telus (3.36Mbps) When it

comes to the network progress of Canada’s three major operators, Canada currently has some of the highest

performing networks in the world and they only seem to be improving, the report concluded.