Comparison
The following table summarizes residential broadband offerings in Canada. No provider is nationwide and the chart does not include abilities of customer equipment or the speeds after Peer-to-peer traffic shaping. In particular, some products are 'up to' the speed quoted and may not deliver that speed in all areas. Since plans may change at any time, this list is not comprehensive.
| Internet Service Provider | Type | Lowest tier | Highest tier | Availability | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Download | Upload | Cap | Download | Upload | Cap | |||
| Internet Lightspeed | DSL | 3 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 125 GB | 6 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 125 GB | Western Canada |
| Shaw Communications | Cable | 10 Mbit/s | ½ Mbit/s | 125 GB | 250 Mbit/s | 15 Mbit/s | 1 TB | Western Canada |
| Rogers Hi-Speed Internet | Cable | 6 Mbit/s | ¼ Mbit/s | 20 GB | 150 Mbit/s | 10 Mbit/s | 500 GB | Eastern Canada |
| Rogers Ultimate Fibre | Fibre | 250 Mbit/s | 250 Mbit/s | 500 GB | Fibre markets | |||
| Vidéotron | Cable | 5 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 15 GB | 200 Mbit/s | 30 Mbit/s | 250 GB | Quebec |
| Cogeco | Cable | 4 Mbit/s | ⅗ Kbit/s | 15 GB | 50 Mbit/s | 2 Mbit/s | 250 GB | Ontario and Quebec |
| EastLink | Cable | 1.5 Mbit/s | ⅛ Mbit/s | ? | 100 Mbit/s | 5 Mbit/s | 250 GB | Various |
| Bell Internet | VDSL2 | 5 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 15 GB | 50 Mbit/s | 10 Mbit/s | 175 GB | Ontario and Quebec |
| Bell Internet | Fibre | 15 Mbit/s | 15 Mbit/s | 75 GB | 175 Mbit/s | 175 Mbit/s | 300 GB | Ontario and Quebec |
| Bell Aliant | DSL | 1.5 Mbit/s | 640 Kbit/s | 15 Mbit/s | 2 Mbit/s | Atlantic Canada | ||
| Bell Aliant FibreOP | Fibre | 20 Mbit/s | 15 Mbit/s | 250 Mbit/s | 30 Mbit/s | Atlantic Canada | ||
| National Capital Freenet | VDSL2 | 6 Mbit/s | ⅘ Mbit/s | 300 GB | National Capital Region | |||
| Nexicom | VDSL2 | 6 Mbit/s | ⅘ Mbit/s | 25 Mbit/s | 7 Mbit/s | Ontario | ||
| Telus | VDSL2 or GPON (Fibre) | 6 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 150 GB | 50 Mbit/s | 10 Mbit/s | 400 GB | Alberta and British Columbia |
| SaskTel | DSL | ¼ Mbit/s | ⅛ Mbit/s | 25 Mbit/s | 2 Mbit/s | Saskatchewan | ||
| SaskTel infiNET | Fibre | 2 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 260 Mbit/s | 30 Mbit/s | Saskatchewan | ||
| Manitoba Telecom Services | DSL | ¼ Mbit/s | ¼ Mbit/s | 20 Mbit/s | 2 Mbit/s | Manitoba | ||
| TekSavvy | Cable | 3 Mbit/s | ⅘ Mbit/s | 25 GB | 28 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | ∞ GB | Various |
| TekSavvy | DSL | 6 Mbit/s | ⅘ Mbit/s | 75 GB | 25 Mbit/s | 10 Mbit/s | ∞ GB | Various |
| Telehop | Cable | 3 Mbit/s | ¼ Mbit/s | 300 GB | 15 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 300 GB | Ontario |
| ElectronicBox | DSL | 6 Mbit/s | ⅘ Mbit/s | 100 GB | 25 Mbit/s | 10 Mbit/s | 500 GB | Ontario and Quebec |
| Novus Entertainment | Fibre | 25 Mbit/s | 10 Mbit/s | 250 GB | 300 Mbit/s | 300 Mbit/s | Vancouver | |
| Velcom | VDSL2 | 6 Mbit/s | ⅘ Mbit/s | 100 GB | 25 Mbit/s | 10 Mbit/s | Ontario and Quebec | |
| Yak Communications | DSL | 5 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 60 GB | Discontinued | |||
| Start Communications | Cable | 6 Mbit/s | ¼ Mbit/s | 100/∞ GB | 45 Mbit/s | 4 Mbit/s | 350 GB | Ontario |
| Start Communications | DSL | 2 Mbit/s | ⅘ Mbit/s | 100/∞ GB | 15 Mbit/s | 1 Mbit/s | 300 GB | Ontario |
The legal definition of broadband in Canada is 1.5 Mbit/s (megabits per second). This is essentially the bandwidth required to transmit compressed VGA (640x480) motion video with modest quality. However, in recent years the competition between the major broadband Internet providers has caused frequent increases in the available bandwidth provided to home users.
Regional Canadian ISPs peer through a few major Internet Exchange Points, the most notable of which is the Toronto Internet Exchange. However, these regional networks usually share the same backbones for longer distance connectivity.
The largest DSL provider in Canada is Bell Internet (formerly Bell Sympatico). Bell owns and maintains physical layer connectivity through a combination of optical fibre networks, DSLAM and Customer Premise Equipment. Few other DSL providers have comparable network infrastructure so a lot of them instead use lines provided by Bell. Their speed is however limited to 5 Mbit/s down, ⅘ Mbit/s up for residential lines. ADSL is the predominant technology while ADSL2+ is quickly emerging as the new standard, fueled by the urgency to compete with cable companies in the digital TV market. In British Columbia (BC), Alberta (AB), and parts of Quebec (QC), the incumbent telco is Telus, owning the DSLAMs, the fibre, and provides many services Bell does, however at slower speeds. An example of the speed difference is a standard DSL line in BC/A is 1.5 Mbit/s, while a standard DSL line in Ontario(ON)/QC can be up to 25 Mbit/s; the top tier internet speed is 14 Mbit/s/s in BC/AB and 25 Mbit/s/s in ON/QC.
The other major players offering DSL and IPTV services are SaskTel in Saskatchewan and Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) in Manitoba. Download speeds are up to 8 Mbit/s, though recent upgrades now make HDTV and much higher rates possible.
For Cable offerings, standard North American DOCSIS based equipment are used.
Read more about this topic: Internet In Canada
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