A new report analyzing cellular connectivity experiences by customers of Canada's Big 3 providers says Rogers remains the most reliable network while Telus has the top 5G availability and Bell provides the best 5G download speeds.
The study by Opensignal, released Wednesday, collected data from Oct. 1 to Dec. 29 of last year and scored the three companies on their performances across a variety of metrics.
"Competition remains fierce among Canadian operators, with over a third of awards being shared between two or more operators, and all three operators taking home a sizable haul of wins," said report author Rupert Bapty.
Rogers Communications Inc. was the winner in the reliability and consistency categories, which measure users' ability to connect to and successfully complete basic tasks on a network.
The company scored 916 points on a scale from 100 to 1000 for reliability, its second win in the category, and had an 80.5 per cent rating when it came to consistency, which it won for the fourth time.
Rogers' network also demonstrated the fastest average upload speeds, both overall and for 5G users. Rogers had average upload speeds of 12.4 megabits per second overall and 29 megabits per second over 5G connections.
Bapty noted that Rogers had the largest share of first-place finishes across categories measured in the report, with eight total wins, including six outright.
However, Telus Corp. leapfrogged Rogers on 5G availability. Canadian 5G subscribers spend the highest proportion of time with a 5G connection on Telus’ network at 14.2 per cent, the report said — one of the company's five awards.
Telus also tied with Bell when it comes to download speed experience, with statistically similar scores of 77.5 and 77.3 megabits per second, respectively.
Opensignal said this marked a change from its previous report, when Bell won the award outright. It said Telus, Bell and Rogers have all seen a boost in average download speeds since its 2024 report.
Bell, which was the top provider in seven categories, outpaced its competitors on 5G download speeds with a score of 189.1 megabits per second — more than 10 per cent higher than second-placed Telus.
Bell also performed best for mobile gaming experiences over 5G networks, as the only Canadian company whose score ranked in the "excellent" tier, compared with Telus and Rogers who Opensignal considered "good."
Telus and Bell were joint winners in both the overall and 5G coverage experience categories awards, posting identical scores due to their network sharing agreements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 19, 2025.
Companies in this story: (TSX:RCI.B, TSX:BCE, TSX:T)
Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press
