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Canada's Internet Among Best, Report Says

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-just-good-at-having-moose dept.

silentbrad writes "Canadians enjoy among the fastest, most widely available and least expensive broadband Internet in the developed world, says a report released Thursday. The report, based on the results of 52 million speed tests of broadband users across the G7 countries and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) membership, was produced by Montreal-based consulting firm Lemay Yates Associates Inc. on behalf of Rogers Communications Inc., the country's largest broadband service provider. It disputes the OECD's own report, published in July, that ranked Canada's high-speed Internet offerings significantly below those of other countries. The report comes days after the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission revealed a sharp jump in the number of complaints it has received regarding Internet traffic-management practices, or 'throttling' in recent months." And it's about to get a little better — reader ForgedArtificer points out that Rogers has promised to end all throttling over their network by the end of the year.

34 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bell Canada by omganton · · Score: 3, Insightful

    200GB IS almost nothing these days.

    Not that I can talk, Comcast caps me at 250GB.

  2. And the report was paid for by... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The report, based on the results of 52 million speed tests of broadband users across the G7 countries and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) membership, was produced by Montreal-based consulting firm Lemay Yates Associates Inc. on behalf of Rogers Communications Inc.

    I think that alone says how big a grain of salt to take this report with.

    1. Re:And the report was paid for by... by Erioll · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Exactly. The international report, we're doing not so hot. The one funded by one of the largest communications companies in the country who has an interest in the status quo: we're awesome!

      Gee, you think there might be some bias?

    2. Re:And the report was paid for by... by clarkn0va · · Score: 4, Interesting

      http://i.imgur.com/M3G7f.png The math there is a little old, and SSD prices have come down some.

      --
      I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
    3. Re:And the report was paid for by... by crutchy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      merely comparatively speaking, i would trust a report ranking canadian internet performance from the OECD on face value more so than i would trust a similar report funded by a canadian telco on face value.

      the factual accuracy (or lack thereof) of either is irrelevant in making such a decision (in this case bias trumps).

  3. Not even close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I live in Canada and we have unusually slow and expensive Internet connections compared to other developed countries, especially places in Europe and the more liberal parts of east Asia. A lot of that is due to the remoteness of much of Canada. In the cities it's not so bad, but step outside the city limits and the speed drops off in a hurry. Many places in rural Canada don't have high-speed yet, at least not without a a very expensive satellite connection.
    The highest speed connection I can find in my corner of the country is about 1/200th the speed of my friend's standard connection in Korea. And close to the same price.

    1. Re:Not even close by BitterOak · · Score: 5, Interesting

      A lot of that is due to the remoteness of much of Canada. In the cities it's not so bad, but step outside the city limits and the speed drops off in a hurry. Many places in rural Canada don't have high-speed yet, at least not without a a very expensive satellite connection.

      I can second that. I have a friend who lives on a small farm just outside of the city (and I mean just outside), and he uses dialup. I'm not kidding. No cable. No DSL. His only "high speed" option would be satellite, which he can't really afford, and isn't that great anyway. The sad part is, his job is in IT. He also has three school age children. I'm not talking about remote here, either, I'm talking about a farm just outside city limits.

      --
      If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
    2. Re:Not even close by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 4, Informative

      The beauty is though in Canada most of the population is in big cities. About half of our population lives in the top 10 cities. Heck nearly a third of the country lives in the bottom half of Ontario. So comparing the "average" canadian we might look pretty good but mainly because we for the most part live in large cities. For the 30% or so not in a big city life can suck, 25Mbps on a LTE dongle for $91 for a 9GB monthly cap assuming you can get a signal in the hicks.

    3. Re:Not even close by realityimpaired · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Depends on who you're comparing it against. I pay $42/mo for 12meg DSL with a 300GB cap, and unmetered usage between 2am and 8am. Compared to the US, that's *really* cheap. Compared to South Korea? You've gotta be kidding me.

      That being said, it does depend on where you are. The FTTH service that Aliant sells on the east coast is *way* cheaper than DSL services in Ontario/Quebec. Still, I do have to ask what developed countries the "study" looked at, because anecdotally I know that many developed countries in Europe put Canada to shame.

    4. Re:Not even close by Mashiki · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I can confirm both of these posters. There are parts inside of my city where you can't get DSL or Cable still, because there isn't the infrastructure. This is a city of 70k people. What's annoying as hell? The "northern broadband initiative" which originally was the rural broadband initiative. Where they were supposed to be getting broadband to places just outside of cities, and all that. Of course now it's all dry, and rogers, bell, and other companies just took the money and ran like hell.

      Canada is damned terrible for broadband.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    5. Re:Not even close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      As a Canadian now living in Europe let me say Canada's internet is slower, more expensive and more restrictive than anything I've seen here. Most Canadians know this too, so at least this report will serve as a textbook example of buying results and why you should never trust a study without first looking at who paid for it.

  4. Re:Bell Canada by rikkards · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Or Teksavvy 30M & unlimited for $49

  5. Best Internet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Best Internet?? Ohh that must be why my parents are forced to pay $59 a month for 512kbps as their only non-dialup option! $99 for 1mbit. Also a download usage cap of 24MB/hr... Don't believe me? netkaster.ca/packages.htm

  6. 1st... by fire113 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Would have had 1st post, but Rogers is throttling me...

  7. Our internet sucks by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The big two (Bell and Rogers) just successfully lobbied to FORCE OUR OTHER COMPANIES to stop offering unlimited home internet.

    Prices just went up from $24.95 a month for reasonable service (had problems with the Acanac $19.95 sorry) to $29 and that's only available paid in advance for a year (Still WAY WAY better the 3 year contracts they were handing out 5 years ago, but still...)

    So our internet is now more expensive by 1/6 not sure how much that factors in but you can get a T1 anywhere so it must play a role.

    Also they're rolling out wireless net, 802.11i/s equivalent... which increases penetration but hurts reliability and latency... which means no gaming + slow page refreshes + fewer home servers.

    So depending on when the study was conducted they could be way off... Canadians generally are reasonably well off, educated and meticulous (fallout from the "Friendly Polite" thing) so we took to computing pretty well... doesn't mean the companies providing it are worth a damn.

    I still remember receiving a file from a girlfriend living in Korea. Holy tube inferiority batman! She saturated my downlink then wrote me asking if something was broken :(

    1. Re:Our internet sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Finally, the perfect thread to bring up the girlfriend anecdote!"
      -You

    2. Re:Our internet sucks by DeathFromSomewhere · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The big two (Bell and Rogers) just successfully lobbied to FORCE OUR OTHER COMPANIES to stop offering unlimited home internet.

      No they didn't. We won that battle.

      --
      -1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
    3. Re:Our internet sucks by Nemyst · · Score: 3, Informative

      Teksavvy has extremely low penetration though. Outside of the main cities, it's impossible to get service with them, and I'm not speaking of rural areas either (I'm in a new area in a 80k-large town, not small by any means, and they don't service us).

    4. Re:Our internet sucks by Grieviant · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No, we didn't win that battle. While we were celebrating the victory against metered billing, the CRTC was busy mandating that bulk leasing of existing lines (from Rogers and Bell to smaller competitors such as Teksavvy) would see a price increase. Rogers and Bell managed managed to extort us further by aiming absurdly high.

  8. So both are useless by bonch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That conclusion differs vastly from the OECD report, which ranks Canada as 26th, or seventh most-expensive among its membership. The disparity comes from different methodologies employed by the two reports.

    Hey, kids, create whichever study results you want simply by changing your methodologies!

  9. I call BS... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a Canadian living in California.

    Cable here:
    Comcast: I pull a lot of data at like 2MB/s consistently fast
    Rogers: I pull like 1-1.2 MB/s & within like 10 days, I get a warning that I'm almost done with my cap.

    Comcast: 49.95/mo
    Rogers: 39.95 + overage charges which cap out at $20 extra (the overage charges are insane - basically guaranteed to get to $20).

    Bell is an even bigger joke. I think I'm going to trust the OECD results than the results of a firm hired by Rogers.

    1. Re:I call BS... by Yaztromo · · Score: 4, Informative

      As a Canadian living in California.

      Cable here: Comcast: I pull a lot of data at like 2MB/s consistently fast Rogers: I pull like 1-1.2 MB/s & within like 10 days, I get a warning that I'm almost done with my cap.

      Comcast: 49.95/mo Rogers: 39.95 + overage charges which cap out at $20 extra (the overage charges are insane - basically guaranteed to get to $20).

      Bell is an even bigger joke. I think I'm going to trust the OECD results than the results of a firm hired by Rogers.

      Things are pretty bad in Ontario, and Bell and Rogers are completely to blame. But get outside Ontario, and things are significantly better in many places.

      Here in Victoria, BC, I'm running 100/30Mb through Shaw for fairly reasonable rates (on its own it's about $85/mo, but as we're on a bundle with digital HDTV service we pay less than that -- unfortunately, they don't break it out for the sake of comparison. As I telecommute, I'm fortunate that my employer pays for it anyway), with 500GB of monthly data. They're currently upgrading our area to support 250MB connections, with 1TB of data per month.

      Which is WAY better than when I lived in Toronto and was a Rogers customer, or for my family still living in the area (and still using Rogers). They're paying just a little bit less, and aren't even getting 10Mb service. Which, if anything just goes to show that what we should be taking from Roger's paid report here is that other providers outside Roger's coverage area are pulling up the average. Rogers itself still has a lot of work to do to improve their service.

      Yaz.

  10. Bandwidth caps by spacenet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I beg to differ.

    Typical entry-level plan in Canda:
    http://www.videotron.com/service/internet-services/internet-access/basic-internet
    Cost: 29.95 CAD/month (29.97 USD/month)
    Speed: 3 Mbps down, 800 Kbps up.
    Cap: 5 gigabytes per month combined download+upload cap.

    Best available plan in Estonia:
    http://www.eq.ee/page.asp?p=45
    Cost: 17,19 euros/month (22.60 USD/month)
    Speed: From 16 to 64 Mbps down, 8 Mbps up.
    Cap: None.

    1. Re:Bandwidth caps by jcombel · · Score: 4, Informative

      what? no.

      in any areas where population density is a problem, the cable has already been laid for decades now. any equipment upgrades that needed done were also completed many years ago.

      in areas where population density is not a problem, "laying cable" is incredibly cheap work, and often subsidized.

      the "expense" is that the large telecoms have lobbied their way into regional monopolies, and legally prevent competitors from supplying better products (unlimited packages).

    2. Re:Bandwidth caps by DM9290 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Size of Estonia: 17500 square miles
      Size of Canada: 3855103 square miles

      When you have 200 times as much space, laying cable is expensive.

      It is irrelevant how many square miles exist: the question is the distance of the customer from the nearest point of presence of the ISP and how many customers are served from each POP.

      the Greater Toronto Area alone, has over 3 times the population of all of estonia concentrated in an area about 1/7th the size.

      When you add in the population of the immediate vicinities of the largest cities in Canada
      Toronto 5.5 Million
      Montreal 3.9 million
      Ottawa, 1.1 million
      Edmonton 1 million
      Calgary 1 million
      Vancouver 2.4 million
      Quebec City 750 thousand

      you have over 50% of the population of the entire county living in cities with large populations larger than 50% of the entire country of Estonia. And much denser than Estonia's average population density.

      --
      No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
    3. Re:Bandwidth caps by Nemyst · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When many of the lines were laid by the government, no.

      Even when considering cable, the lines have been laid down a long time ago by now and most of the network doesn't need to be replaced when new, faster tech arrives.

      The answer is much easier: few telcos, price fixing (effectively if not legally speaking).

  11. AS a Canadian by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Informative

    I can tell you with absolute conviction that WE DO NOT have even close to the best access or speed.
    Huge swaths of the country are not able to access anything other then cell phone internet and most of the country is only able to get online using either Rogers or Bell (as they simply do not allow the little guys to use there lines outside of the big cities) and the price is huge (I pay $50 for 5GB max per month with over the limit prices that cost ~ $800 if you use 30Gigs).
    Also absolutely everything is heavily throttled.
    And Rogers only promised because they where threatened by the government.

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
  12. s eaking a a c nad an by nimbius · · Score: 5, Funny

    I m st congr tula e R gers on t eir contin ed dedica ion to excelle t s rvice. I H pe to see mor advance ents in th futur as weR@#%^[NO CARRIER]

    --
    Good people go to bed earlier.
  13. Shill study by billcopc · · Score: 5, Informative

    This study was bought and paid for by Rogers. It is complete and utter bullshit!

    I have good, fast, uncapped and relatively affordable cable internet access. I get it from TekSavvy, a smaller "indie" ISP that leases the last mile from the incumbents but uses their own network after that point. On cable, this gets me around Rogers' throttling and filtering. DSL users aren't so lucky as Bell's throttling happens right at the client node.

    When I was still with Rogers, my monthly bill for the mid-range service tier was $130. This consisted of $64.99 for the service itself, $50 in overage charges every month, and taxes. With Tek, I'm paying $62 for faster service and no caps.

    Our internet is far from the best. Bell, Rogers and Telus are classic telco robber barons. They oversell like mad, throttle and cap in such a way as to protect their old phone and TV services, and spend fortunes on advertising to fool us into believing we're not actually getting fucked. If they took half the advertising budget, and spent it on infrastructure upgrades, we'd be the envy of every other crooked G7 nation. With the low-cost, no-nonsense indies it's a lot better, but the grand majority of users are still with the big three due to misplaced loyalty and laziness.

    --
    -Billco, Fnarg.com
  14. Hahaha! by bunhed · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Rogers and Bell are parasites of the worst order. I can't even bother to look at the report or links. I know what I get for speed, reliability and I know what my bill is. This report can only be complete bullshit in every way!

  15. CORRECT THIS ARTICLE by sabernet · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As a Canadian, let me respond as soon as I finish being angry at the editor...

    Seriously, why post the results of an oligarchical industry funded story as if fact? Seriously, what the hell, editors?

    Let me put how offensive and misleading this is in perspective by changing the quote a tad:

    "Americans enjoy among the fastest, most widely available and least expensive broadband Internet in the developed world, says a report released Thursday. The report, based on the results of 52 million speed tests of broadband users across the G7 countries and Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) membership, was produced by NY-based consulting firm SomeGuy Associates Inc. on behalf of AT&T Communications Inc., the country's largest broadband service provider. It disputes the OECD's own report, published in July, that ranked Canada's high-speed Internet offerings significantly below those of other countries. The report comes days after the FCC revealed a sharp jump in the number of complaints it has received regarding Internet traffic-management practices, or 'throttling' in recent months."

    By helping spread this FUD you are literally doing harm to us. Due diligence, do you speak it?

    I've been visiting this site for a long time. I've not liked some of the things and mistakes I've seen posted here, but this is actually making me angry. Congratulations.

  16. News is nonsense by nierdal · · Score: 3, Informative

    Common slashdot.... this news is complete nonsense.... check real prices here :

    http://www.videotron.com/service/internet-services/internet-access/high-speed-internet

    56$ per month for a very standard 8mpbs (without bundle) and 50gb cap. Add taxes and you're at 65$ per month

    You can get way better than that in the US

  17. Re:Thanks for the laugh by Nikker · · Score: 4, Funny

    In other news, my wife declared that I was one the best lovers she ever had.

    She says that about you too?

    --
    A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.
  18. As a Canadian Living in South Korea by crossmr · · Score: 3, Informative

    what a fucking joke.
    Even in a major Canadian city the speed is terrible.
    I went from 3/1 in the downtown sector of a top 5 Canadian city because some wire didn't run the right way on that block to 100/80 everywhere in south Korea.
    I pay less than I do there, if I want service, a guy comes out when I want him to, he calls before he comes and if for some reason I can't make the time, he'll ask me when he wants me to drop by.
    There is no cap
    no throttling (other than the underseas cable)
    Rogers only hope is that Canadians never take the time to genuinely educate themselves.