Internet speeds not as good in B.C. as other provinces

Newly released data indicates which provinces are falling behind when it comes to internet speed and quality across the country.

The Canadians Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has released new data on how Canadians experience internet and it shows significantly different results. The data was generated from 126,000 tests crowdsourced from individual Canadian users. According to the study, upload speeds across the country need more attention as consumers actively upload more than in previous years.

Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal top the list, while Vancouver, Victoria, Surrey, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Regina all landed in the bottom half of the ranking. CIRA's data only includes rural households that have an Internet connection (an inherent bias of an online test). These tests had an average download speed of 14.81 Mbps, which although seemingly strong is still 25 per cent behind the urban national average. Rural communities are also more likely to experience quality issues such as higher ping and jitter.

Canada's provinces and territories did not perform equally. New Brunswick leads the way with an average download of 26.98 Mbps and an average upload speed of 12.39 Mbps. The Yukon Territory has the lowest average speeds at 6.68 Mbps.

In parsing out data for one Canadian city, CIRA found that a city's core can have significantly different results from its suburbs. This data should be of use to municipal officials as they work to understand the dynamics of Internet performance in their jurisdictions.