Introduction

The Canadian mobile market comprises several operators, of which five have their own networks with nation-wide coverage: Bell Mobility, Rogers Wireless, Telus Mobility and the two Quebecor-owned MNOs Freedom Mobile and Vidéotron. Thus, the network situation for these MNOs acts as a trustworthy barometer of the network situation in the country. A good knowledge of the network situation also allows the customers to perform fully informed decisions.

As Freedom Mobile and Vidéotron share their networks and are both owned by Quebecor, they will be analyzed jointly under the Quebecor tag. Thus, in practice, there are four MNOs with nation-wide coverage.

The objective of this report is to provide a summary of the network situation in Canada for these five carriers. It is worth noting that there are other MNOs that provide only regional coverage. Consequently, these MNOs can not be properly compared with their competitors and are left out of the current study.

This report provides a quick overview of the network situation based on the following KPIs:

• Disconnection time: daily average minutes that the users from a MNO have had only emergency coverage or no coverage.
• 4G and 5G time: percentage of time that the users from a MNO have had 4G and, if available, 5G coverage (including 5G NSA and 5G SA).
• 5G penetration and usage: percentage of users that have 5G connectivity, and percentage of time in 5G.
• Network status in the Common Coverage Area: an analysis of the network status, based on the signal strength and the signal quality, for the areas where all five MNOs provide coverage.
• Mobile network latency: percentage of customers on different latency ranks. The ranks are selected according to several performance thresholds.

Summary

The data collected by Weplan Analytics shows that, overall, the four main mobile network operators have a good network situation in Canada. However, there are some notable differences between them.

In terms of connectivity, the four operators have very similar disconnection times, with Roger Wireless having 9 minutes of limited connectivity or disconnection per day, Quebecor having 15, Bell Mobility experiencing 13 minutes and Telus Mobility reaching 14 minutes of disconnection a day. It is relevant to highlight that all three operators offer 4G/5G coverage at least 96% of the time, which highly guarantees the quality of service provided by these operators.

These Canadian operators offer good coverage. Regarding areas of "Good" or "Very Good" network, Rogers leads the list with 74% of its covered area with good or very good coverage, followed by Quebecor (69%), Bell Mobility (63%) and Telus Mobility (61%). It should be noted that Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility are parte of a MOCN (Multi Operator Core Network) agreement that causes them to share their network. Thus, their figures regarding disconnection time, quality of the coverage area and latency figures are essentially the same, with small differences due to different usage by end-clients. Also, it must be kept in mind that these figures make reference to the common coverage area.

In terms of 5G penetration and usage, Roger Wireless leads the number of users with 5G capability with 40% of its users having access to 5G network. Telus Mobility and Quebecor have 36% and 34% respectively of users with 5G capability and access, whereas Bell Mobility has 25% of their users with 5G capabilities. Also, Rogers Wireless provides 5G coverage 88% of the time. Telus Mobility offers 5G coverage 81% of the time, Bell Mobility 77% of the time, and Quebecor 70% of the time.

Finally, in terms of latency, the Canadian MNOs exceed 80% of measurements classified as good or excellent. Furthermore, Quebecor, Rogers Wireless, and Bell Mobility, statistically tied, have 47% of measurements with excellent latency, while Telus Mobility has 42% of measurements with excellent latency.

The main key figures are as follows:

• The main operators in Canada, Bell Mobility, Quebecor, Rogers Wireless and Telus Mobility, offer 4G and 5G technology coverage at least 96% of the time.
• Between 25% and 40% of the customers from the analyzed operators are 5G customers (i.e. customers who have a device compatible with 5G technology) and can access it, on average, around 79% of their coverage time.
• At least 81% of all MNOs' measurements have a latency good enough to offer an adequate experience for every possible use.

Methodology

In the following pages an in-depth description of each analyzed KPI can be found, including the methodology and rationale behind them. At a more general level, the following paragraph describes the data collection methodology.

At a more general level, Weplan Analytics collects crowdsourced data from more than 200 million devices in 31 countries. For this analysis, 216 million measurements collected between october and december 2023 were used.

The following map shows the density of measurements taken throughout Canada by Weplan Analytics.

The most relevant insights can be found in the Summary section above. A detailed account of each one comprises the rest of the report below.

As the four aforementioned MNOs serve their networks to other parties (such as VMNOs, due to roaming agreements or as part of emergency coverage) they have been filtered by the network provider reported in the SIM card.

It's important to mention that in this analysis, both the mentioned MNOs and the MVNOs that exclusively operate on one of the MNOs' networks were included. This is because of the significance that MVNOs hold in the country.

More details about the methodology can be found here.

Connectivity

Connectivity: Daily disconnection time

The following graphic shows the disconnection time as the average number of minutes that each customer of each MNO experiences disconnections throughout the day. Disconnection time includes moments when a customer has no coverage at all (such as underground parkings, inside elevators, so far away from an antenna that connection is not possible...) or moments when a customer only has emergency coverage, that is, the ability to perform only emergency calls. This disconnected time may (and, in most cases, will) be discontinuous, and is the average of the daily disconnection time for all users.

Among the Canadian operators, Rogers Wireless and Quebecor have the lowest disconnection time with only 9 and 10 daily minutes of disconnection, respectively, followed by Bell Mobility with 13 minutes and Telus Mobility with 14 daily minutes of disconnection.

Connectivity: 4G and 5G time

With the advent of the newer 5G technology older technologies such as 2G and 3G are being turned off to liberate the RF spectrum. Thus, guaranteeing at least a proper 4G coverage is one of the main goals for MNOs, and for those who already have 4G sorted out, the focus turns to 5G.

In terms of 4G and 5G connectivity, all the analyzed operators have coverage of these technologies around 97% of the time.

5G penetration and usage

The possibility of a customer to use the 5G network depends on several factors:

1. Their device must be 5G compatible.
2. The MNO must have a 5G network.
3. The client must contract a mobile plan that allows the 5G to be used, since not all MNOs offer full access to the 5G network as part of their regular plans.

The deployment of the 5G network in Canada commenced in 2020, with Rogers Wireless launching 5G NSA in January 2020. Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility followed suite in June 2020, and Vidéotron deployded its own 5G network at the end of 2020, although with a limited scope. Rogers Wireless kept the lead in the 5G area by deploying the first 5G SA network in early 2021.

Canada carried out its third significant auction in October 2023, making available spectrum for 5G in the 3.8 GHz band. Previously, the 2019 auction covered the 600 MHz band, followed by the 3,500 MHz band in 2021. These events marked important milestones in the deployment of 5G technology in the country, demonstrating a continued commitment to the expansion and enhancement of telecommunications networks.

The following charts show the percentage of users per MNO that have 5G access, and the percentage of time they are under 5G coverage. To establish whether a user is a 5G client or not, their 5G connectivity has been checked: if they have connected to the 5G network at least once, they are considered 5G clients.

In Canada all carriers offer 5G. The operator with the most 5G clients is Rogers Wireless, with 40% of this type, followed by Telus Mobility and Quebecor with 36% and 34% of users with access to 5G, respectively. Lastly, Bell Mobility has 25% of this type of customers.

Regarding 5G coverage time for 5G clients, there are some differences between operators: Rogers Wireless maintains the lead, providing 5G coverage 88% of the time. Telus Mobility offers 5G coverage 81% of the time, Bell Mobility 77% of the time, and Quebecor 70% of the time.

4G and 5G network status

There are two main network performance indicators used to address the network status: signal strength and signal quality. Each technology has its own measurements, but five great categories can be established:

• Very Good: the network performance for all usages should be excellent.
• Good: the network performance for all usages may present occasional difficulties but is good overall.
• Fair: most network network-dependent usages (such as calls or data usage) will have at least a decent performance.
• Degraded: network usage may be unstable and unreliable but allows for basic usage such as calls with acceptable quality and very slow data transfer rate.
• Very Degraded: apart from emergency calls network usage is nearly impossible.

There are two ways to analyze these categories: by percentage of covered area or by percentage of measurements. Most measurements take place in urban areas, where coverage is better, while in european countries most of the territory is not urban, so the percentage of area with a problematic network situation may be different from the percentage of measurements with a problematic network situation.

To ensure a fair comparison between carriers only areas with presence from Rogers Wireless, Quebecor and at least one of Bell Mobility or Telus Mobility.

Rogers Wireless leads with the best result, with 95% of the area with fair or better coverage. Following closely is Quebecor with 93%, and in the last position, statistically tied, are Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility, both with 88% of the area rated as at least fair.

Regarding areas with good or very good network coverage, Rogers Wireless maintains its leadership on the list with 72% of the area classified as such, followed by Quebecor with 69%, Bell Mobility with 63%, and Telus Mobility with 61%.

Measurement-wise the general network situation is similar. Quebecor has the best result, with 89% of measurements being fair or better. Followed by Rogers Wireless with 86%, Bell Mobility with 78%, and Telus Mobility with 75% of measurements being at least fair.

If we focus on "Good" and "Very Good" measurements, the order remains the same: Quebecor maintains the lead with 67% of "Good" and "Very Good" measurements, followed by Rogers Wireless with 60%, and Bell Mobility and Telus Mobility with only 49% and 46% of "Good" and "Very Good" measurements.

Latency status

Latency is the measurement of how much time it takes for the information to be transmitted between the user and the network. A lower latency means a faster, and smoother network experience, whereas a higher latency means that the network experience will not be as good, or even unusable. This makes latency a good indicator for user experience. We have divided latency in four main groups:

• Excellent latency: very smooth user experience, even with the most data-intensive usage, such as gaming or 4K streaming.
• Good latency: good user experience, although gaming may not be as fluid and 4K may present occasional problems.
• Degraded latency: mediocre user experience. Gaming and 4K are either uncomfortable or impossible, videochat may present noticeable lag, messaging with multimedia may take a long time to load and loading a web may be slow.
• Bad latency: essentially unusable network. Only the lightest usage, such as sending messages without multimedia works decently.

The four MNOs present a similar latency situation. Telus Mobility leads the list with 83% of its measurements classified as at least good, closely followed by Quebecor and Rogers Wireless, statistically tied with 82%, and Bell Mobility with 81% of their measurements falling into this classification.

Regarding the percentage of measurements with excellent latency, Quebecor, Rogers Wireless, and Bell Mobility, statistically tied, have 47% of measurements with excellent latency. In the last position is Telus Mobility, with 42% of measurements with excellent latency.