Canada’s 5G networks still appear to be in their infancy, with limited coverage and seemingly not a lot of benefit to most mobile customers.
However, a new report from Ookla’s Speedtest shows that 5G is, on average, about 205 percent faster than 4G. Considering the upcoming spectrum auction will likely kickstart the rollout of true 5G in Canada, it’s exciting to see 5G already boasts higher speeds.
According to the Speedtest report, the average 5G download speed in Canada was 169.46Mbps, compared to 55.50Mbps on 4G. That’s an increase of 205.3 percent.
Along with average download speed, the Speedtest report showed that Bell was the fastest 5G operator with average 5G downloads of 228.99Mbps compared to 220.31Mbps for Telus 5G and 129.82 for Rogers 5G. However, when it came to 5G upload speed, Bell was the slowest at 22.93Mbps compared to Telus’ 23.08Mbps and Roger’s 23.75Mbps.
Speedtest reported that Rogers had the highest ‘time spent’ on 5G. Rogers customers reportedly spent 27 percent of their time on 5G, compared to 21 percent for Telus and 12.7 percent for Bell.
Getting into regional data, Speedtest says B.C. had 53 cities with 5G deployments. Ontario came in second with 48 cities, flanked by Alberta at 43.
Quebec and Alberta had the fastest 5G download speeds, while customers in Alberta spent significantly more time on 5G networks than other provinces (33.4 percent compared to runner-up B.C. at 19 percent).
Finally, Montreal boasted the fastest 5G download speeds at 220.93Mbps. Calgary placed second with 195.23Mbps, followed by Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.
The data behind the report comes from Speedtest Intelligence, a service that offers “up-to-date insights into global fixed broadband and mobile performance data.”
Source: Speedtest