As of this writing, Canada is only rated as the 17th fastest nation for fixed broadband, according to Ookla's monthly Speedtest Global Index. But that doesn't stop Canadians from enjoying their time online: the Canadian Internet Registration Authority's (CIRA) yearly Factbook for 2018 says 90 percent of the country's population is online, and a full 86 percent of homes have broadband.

What's more, 85 percent claim they're actually satisfied with the speed of the internet they have at home. When was the last time someone in the US said something that nice about their ISP? (It probably doesn't hurt that 54 percent of those with broadband in Canada get to work from home at least occasionally.)

CIRA's research concurs with something else on our own results for the Fastest ISPs in Canada: it is only getting faster. Average upload and download speeds in Canada have increased, albeit slightly overall, every year since 2016, according to CIRA.

Our tests show even bigger jumps in broadband throughput up north. The tests, taken by PCMag readers located in Canada, are utilized below to calculate how fast the country's ISPs really are, across all the provinces and territories.

To put this story together we used results from 11,992 tests taken between September 15, 2017, and June 5, 2018, all using our pop-up PCMag Speed Test; we don't use the results taken from our embedded tests as they're limited to connections to US-based servers.

We concentrate on an ISP's throughput up and down, recorded in kilobits per second, which we divide by 1,000 to get to Megabits per second, or Mbps. We take 80 percent of the download speed, 20 percent of the upload speed, and add those to generate a PCMag Speed Index (PSI). That number makes it easy to perform an at-a-glance determination of exactly which ISP is the fastest, as well as make quick comparisons to results from previous years. (For more, read the full methodology from our Fastest ISPs of 2018: United States.)

To be included, an ISP, location, or ISPs in a location must garner at least 100 tests. That's why many smaller local ISPs don't make the cut. So if your ISP is missing, go run a PCMag Speed Test today.

That's the official stuff. Now, let's see who's the fastest ISP in Canada, eh?

The Fastest ISPs in Canada

The seesaw continues between the Bell companies and the dominant cable company of Canada, Rogers. Last year, Rogers was the easy winner of the title with a PCMag Speed Index (PSI) of 67.3. For 2018, despite a nice climb up to 87.6 for Rogers, it wasn't enough to remain the fastest.

Rogers was beat out by two of the Bells. The smaller Bell Aliant subsidiary, which offers service in the Atlantic provinces, squeaked just ahead with an 88.0 (up from last year's 63.3, and which also saw it in the second-place position).

The big leader this year is by far Bell Aliant's big-sister company in the BCE Inc. mega-tele-corp holding company: Bell Canada.

Last year Bell Canada was only in sixth place with a PSI of 27.0. This year, it more than quadrupled its speed to an index of 115.0. That's probably driven by the success of Bell Fibe, the branding for Bell Canada's all fiber-optic to the home (or maybe to the premises) network. Fibe went active in Toronto, the largest city in the nation, in April 2018. That's part of a $1.5 billion investment by Bell Canada, which appears to be paying off.

It's worth noting that our data doesn't even differentiate Bell Canada's various offerings like fiber, DSL, and even mobile connections at this time. Yet Bell Canada still managed an average index higher than any we've seen before in our looks at Canada's ISPs over the years. If DSL can't drag your average speed down, you're an ISP that's doing pretty, pretty great.

Has speed improved for all the ISPs? Yes. Yes it has. Telus jumped from eighth place to fourth by increasing its index from last year's 22.0 to 55.9 this year. Shaw went from 30.3 to 55.5, and Eastlink from 37.8 to 54.2.

It's like that for all the other ISPs in our top 10, including Vidéotron, CIK Telecom, and Cogeco, even if they're in a different order than last year (for example, Cogeco dropped from fifth to ninth place). We had one other change: Bell MTS, another Bell Canada subsidiary operating out in Manitoba, is back in the top 10, displacing TekSavvy (which displaced MTS in 2017). TekSavvy is the 11th fastest ISP with a PSI of 22.8 (which is still faster than last year's 17.1).

WINNERS: The Fastest ISPs in Canada

Bell Canada
Investment in fiber optics to provide consumer internet is paying off for Bell Canada. Even with a mix of services, the provider—which blankets most of Canada from Saskatchewan over to the Atlantic and up north—managed to score numbers unlike we've seen before in the country. Hopefully it'll continue to increase connection speeds even more in the years to come.

Canadian Provinces with the Fastest Internet

Once again, we regret to inform the people of Prince Edward Island that you didn't conduct enough tests on our PCMag Speed Test to be included. And we didn't expect any results from the northern territories. But the other southern provinces of Canada are here to represent.

As we've witnessed in previous editions of this story, the Atlantic side of the country manages to out perform the rest, but this year there's a twist. While in the past, New Brunswick was the leading province (2017's PCMag Speed Index was 62.5), this year it fell to second despite an improved PSI of 100.0.

Instead, the land you want to live in for the fastest internet sticks far into the Atlantic itself: the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. That's mostly thanks to some outstanding speeds provided by the Rogers Ignite Gigabit service which launched in 2016 in St. John's. (Look at that index score below). New Brunswick, by the way, gets a speed boost thanks to Bell Aliant's fibre.

Québec had the best increase year to year, going from a 31.0 last year to 97.3 this year, over three times as fast as 2017. Ontario, the most populous province and that with the most ISPs as well, remains stuck in the middle, despite also increasing speed across the board (from 37.9 to 60.1). As in the past, the western most provinces of Alberta, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan bring up the rear—but again, all of them had excellent average throughput increases since 2017.

Who are the top ISPs in the individual provinces? We don't have enough info to show them all (remember, it's 100 tests per ISP per location) but here's a quick rundown of the PCMag Speed Indexes:

• Alberta: Shaw—66.3
• British Columbia: Telus—56.4
• Manitoba: Shaw—53.5
• Newfoundland and Labrador: Rogers—174.1
• Ontario: Rogers—83.6
• Québec: Bell Canada—167.7
• Saskatchewan: SaskTel—18.9

Canadian Cities with the Fastest Internet

Narrowing down the cities and towns in Canada with the fastest internet speeds took some doing as we recoded a lot of neighborhoods that are now part of bigger municipalities. But the results are pretty striking, especially if you're French Canadian.

Two cities in Québec steal the speed show this year, in particular Quebec City itself, thanks to gigabit connections in some areas, like Charlesbourg. That helped the city earn a stunning PCMag Speed Index of 371.7, a number no one else can beat. The next fastest was over in Gatineau, the province's fourth largest city. (Montreal, if you're wondering, only was at No. 14, with a 54.4.)

Cities in Ontario fill in the rest of the top 10 with one exception: Edmonton, Alberta, is in fifth place with a 80.8 PSI. It's a nice slide for the ON towns, however, from Richmond Hill's peak 92.9 down to Kitchener's comfy 58.8. In the middle of that with an 80.2 is the largest city in the country, Toronto, as well as the nation's capital, Ottawa, with 69.6.

Who are the top ISPs in the big cities? For Toronto, that's Bell Canada, which earned a PCMag Speed Index of 127.9 just in that town alone. Compare that to Rogers in Toronto with a still respectable, some might call stunning, 97.9 PSI. Over in Montreal, Bell Canada also leads with a 68.6. But in Ottawa, Rogers is ahead, with a 94.6 to Bell Canada's 34.6 PSI. Calgary and Winnipeg are the only other major cities we have enough ISP data for, and they're both lead by Shaw Communications.