By Michelle Allan and April Lindgren
Local News Data Hub
Aug. 20, 2021
Internet speed tests conducted last year across Canada reveal the extent to which quality internet service remains a pipe dream for many, including residents of Sturgeon County, Alta.
A Local News Data Hub analysis of tests completed in 53 communities found that in 51 places, including Sturgeon County, the majority of speed test results did not meet the basic service objectives for both upload and download speeds set by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
The commission says Canadian households should have internet connections with access to broadband speeds of at least 50 megabits per second (mbps) for downloads and 10 mbps for uploads.
Of the 1,080 tests conducted in 2020 by internet users in Sturgeon County, however, only six per cent met both the CRTC’s minimum upload and download service objectives. The median download speed for all local tests was 9.065 mbps, well short of the 50 mbps recommended by the CRTC; the median upload speed was 1.55 mbps, nowhere near the CRTC’s performance objective of 10 mbps. (The median is the middle value separating the higher half from the lower half of a range of numbers.)
In Edmonton, by comparison, the median download speed for the 2,612 CIRA tests conducted last year by local users was 67.555 mbps, the upload speed was 14.905 mbps, and 47 per cent of tests met or exceeded the CRTC speed objectives.
The CRTC says 87.4 per cent of households in Canada can access speeds of at least 50/10 mbps, but this drops to 45.6 per cent in rural areas. Higher download speeds allow users to retrieve online content such as web pages, videos, files, or music more quickly. Upload speed dictates how fast pictures, music, and documents can be uploaded and shared.
The Local News Data Hub, launched in January by the Local News Research Project at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism, analyzed the results of 68,813 tests that internet users completed last year using a performance test operated by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA). CIRA, a national not-for-profit organization that promotes trust in the internet, launched the test in 2015, and since then people who want to determine their connection speed have performed nearly one million tests.
While the CIRA test results are not necessarily representative of all internet service in a community, they do point to the challenges many Canadians faced during a pandemic year when fast, reliable internet service was a lifeline.
Tests conducted in communities with fewer than 50,000 people, for instance, significantly underperformed compared to the CRTC’s 50/10 standards. The best results among these smaller places were achieved in Bracebridge, Ont. but they weren’t much to boast about: only 23 per cent of all tests met or exceeded both CRTC performance standards, the median download speed was 15.56 mbps and the median upload speed was 1.53 mbps.
“Rural and remote internet performance has essentially flatlined over the course of the pandemic … starting with a very low level of performance and essentially remaining there,” said CIRA chief executive officer Byron Holland.
Holland said the “massive degradation” of internet performance just outside of most major cities translates into fewer opportunities for individuals and a significant constraint on economic growth: “Pretty much overnight we saw the majority of people having to figure out how to work, go to school, get health care, among other things, let alone a little bit of recreation, all of it online, and in a way that people really hadn’t ever had to do before,” he said. “And that, without a doubt, has stressed the infrastructure and really shone a light on … the digital divide.”
That divide is all too apparent to Sturgeon County’s mayor, Alana Hnatiw, who says poor internet service undermines local competitiveness: “You’ve got small businesses and medium-sized businesses that are hugely disadvantaged,” she added. “They can’t access the online shoppers to the same degree (as) their competitors, a couple miles down the road or in another province.”
Hnatiw said that reliable high-speed internet, like electricity and other basic services, must be available 24/7: “Imagine if you could only turn your lights on in your house during certain times of the day?”
Factors that can affect upload and download speeds include the make and model of the device being used, whether other apps are running in the background, and whether other devices are online at the same time. The type of service purchased from internet service providers is also a factor. Details of service provider contracts submitted with 11,385 tests, however, showed that those users weren’t getting what they paid for. A comparison of the contract details with test results showed that the contracted download and upload speeds were delivered in only nine per cent of cases.
A customer in Huntsville, Ont., for instance, reported paying $200 a month for 70/10 service. The customer’s CIRA test, however, recorded a download speed of 5.52 mbps and an underwhelming upload speed of 0.07 mbps. “NO OTHER OPTION. Impossible to work or do school from home,” the tester wrote in the CIRA comments section.
Another tester in Burlington, Ont., home to about 183,000 people, reported purchasing a download speed of 350 mbps and upload speed of 30 mbps. But in comments to CIRA, the tester said it is impossible to “even connect to a Zoom meeting due to poor internet speeds despite purchasing the highest plans.” Test results for that user’s location documented a download speed of 27.42 mbps and upload speed of 6.27 mbps. Both fall well short of the CRTC’s 50/10 service objectives.
Surrey, B.C. and Quebec City were the only places where 50 per cent or more of test results exceeded the CRTC standards. Compared to what was happening elsewhere, internet testers in Surrey inhabited a whole other connectivity reality: 55 per cent of tests conducted in the Vancouver suburb met or exceeded the CRTC’s 50/10 performance objectives. The median download speed was 82.61 mbps, while the median upload speed was 20.09 mbps.
In Quebec City, half of all tests met or exceeded the CRTC standard. The median download speed was 54.17 mbps and the median upload speed was 11.36 mbps.
In emailed statements, Bell Canada and Rogers Communications, two of Canada’s largest telecoms, both pointed to a CRTC study released last September that concluded the majority of Canadian internet service providers met or exceeded the maximum advertised download and upload speeds.
Nathan Gibson, a spokesman for Bell, said in his email that it is “hard for us to offer any specific comment on your data sets without seeing them.” (CIRA officials said the detailed test results are proprietary but were willing to share them with the Local News Data Hub on the condition that only results of the analysis would be published.)
Gibson went on to note, however, that the CRTC expects 90 per cent of Canadians to have access to 50/10 mbps by the end of this year.
“Delivering broadband to the remaining 10 per cent in such a large country like Canada is a challenge,” he wrote, “but Bell is leading the way by accelerating our roll out of our fibre and rural Wireless Home Internet networks.”
In its response, Rogers said the company “is committed to delivering reliable internet service to more rural, remote and Indigenous communities.” Advertised speeds, the statement said, “reflect the total speed to the home to support multiple devices online at the same time. The top speeds for each internet tier we offer are advertised as ‘up to,’ as many factors can affect the actual speeds a customer experiences.”
The federal government has created a $2.75 billion Universal Broadband Fund to expand internet service at 50/10 mbps to rural and remote communities. The CRTC, meanwhile, is collecting $750 million from larger Canadian telecommunications service providers for a Broadband Fund to improve broadband Internet access in underserved areas.
The Data Hub analysis included only the 53 communities with at least 500 test results. In cases where fewer than 40 tests were done from a single location during the year, the results of every test were included in the analysis. In some cases, however, dozens or even hundreds of tests were conducted from the same location. To prevent these “super tester” locations from skewing the data, each is represented in the data as a single test result reflecting the median upload and download speeds for all tests from that location. This meant that in the end, the results of 68,813 tests conducted from 26,677 test locations were used in the analysis.
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This story was produced by the Local News Data Hub, a project of the Local News Research Project at Ryerson University’s School of Journalism. The Canadian Press is an operational partner of the initiative. Detailed information on the data and methodology can be found here: https://localnewsdatahub.ca/2021/08/how-we-did-it-internet-speed-story-methodology/
