Opensignal has released its latest 5G Experience and Mobile Network Experience reports for Canada. The reports analyze and compare various network experiences, such as video, voice and more, across different operators.
Starting with 5G experience, Opensignal says Rogers broke away from the three-way statistical tie in its last report to win the awards for 5G Availability and 5G Reach. The Toronto-based national carrier also won the 5G Games Experience and 5G Voice App Experience awards. However, Bell and Telus on average had the fastest 5G Download Speeds and jointly won the 5G Video Experience award.
Starting with 5G Availability, Opensignal measurements indicate that Rogers users connected to 5G 11.1 percent of the time, up 2.8 percent from the last 5G Experience report. Bell placed second at 8.5 percent, while Telus claimed 7.2 percent — both scores were a slight decline of 0.3 and 0.9 percent respectively.
Opensignal noted the dip may be due to seasonality, since availability measures typically drop during the summer.
When it comes to 5G Download Speeds, Opensignal measured 174.8Mbps from Bell followed by 168.4Mbps from Telus, representing an 8.6Mbps and 2.8Mbps improvement respectively. Opensignal awarded Bell and Telus a joint win due to the close scores. Both carriers were significantly ahead of Rogers’ 105.1Mbps 5G download speed.
When it comes to upload speeds, All three carriers were close, with Bell at 19.6Mbps, Rogers at 19.5Mbps and Telus at 18.8Mbps. Again, Opensignal awarded a joint win to all three carriers.
Opensignal says its 5G Reach metric represents the proportion of locations where 5G users connect to 5G out of all locations those users visit, place on a scale of 0-10. Rogers scored four points, a 0.9 point improvement, while Bell and Telus tied at 2.7 points.
Opensignal’s 5G Video Experience award measures video experience with real video streaming tests to the typical content delivery networks (CDNs) used for hosting popular media services and websites applied to a 0-100 point scale. Telus scored 80 points while Bell scored 78, giving the carriers a joint win over Rogers’ 74.8 points.
Opensignal notes that scores of 75 or higher represent ‘Excellent’ video experience, which means networks offer a consistent experience across all 5G users, video streaming providers and resolutions tested, as well as fast loading times and almost no stalling.
Similarly, Opensignal’s Games Experience award uses a 0-100 point scale to represent the experience of playing real-time multiplayer mobile games on mobile devices connected to a 5G network.
Rogers took the lead here despite a 0.8 point decline to 86.2 points, breaking its previous statistical tie with Bell, which fell 2.5 points to a score of 82.9. Telus landed in the middle with 84 points.
Finally, for 5G Voice App Experience, Rogers scored 84.1 points out of 100 compared to 82.9 with Telus and 82.6 with Bell. 5G Voice App measures the quality of experience when using over-the-top voice services like WhatsApp, Skype, Facebook Messenger and others.
Mobile Network Experience Report
While Rogers was the big winner in 5G experience, Telus maintained its leadership position in Opensignal’s Mobile Network Experience Report. This report measures the experience for all smartphone users on a network whether or not they have 5G.
Opensignal notes that it saw declines across all three networks in four of seven categories, but warns the dip is likely due to seasonality — Canadian scores usually drop in the summer.
Starting with Video Experience, Telus claimed the win with 72.7 points out of 100. Bell followed with 71 points and Rogers trailed at 68.5, statistically unchanged from the last report. In Games Experience, Rogers and Telus took a joint win with 69.3 and 68.8 points out of 100 respectively. Bell trailed at 67.1 points.
Voice App Experience went to Telus, which lead with 78.4 points compared to 77.7 from Rogers and 77.4 from Bell, landing all three carriers in the ‘Acceptable’ category. However, the scores mark a two to 2.5 point decline across the board.
With Download Speed, Telus took the win at 73.9Mbps, followed by Bell at 69.9Mbps and Rogers in last at 57.5Mbps. Compared to the 5G scores above, there’s clearly quite an improvement for those using 5G networks. The story is similar for Upload Speed, which saw Telus eke out a slight win with 10.9Mbps compared to Rogers’ 10.2Mbps and bell’s 10Mbps.
While Telus has largely led the Big Three so far, when it comes to 4G Availability, Rogers and Bell took the joint win. Rogers offers 92.8 percent 4G Availability and Bell offers 92.4 percent. Telus is slightly lower at 92.3 percent. However, when it comes to 4G Coverage Experience, Telus and Bell were joint winners.
Both networks scored 9.7 out of 10 points for coverage, while Rogers scored 8.6. Opensignal’s Coverage score is derived from locations where customers receive a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
The above scores consider the Big Three carriers nationally. However, Opensignal also detailed the regional network experiences, which include smaller players like Freedom Mobile and Vidéotron where appropriate.
Interestingly, Vidéotron claimed a win in four of seven categories when looking at just Quebec, tied with Telus and Rogers for Voice App Experience and scored lower than Bell, Rogers and Telus for download speeds. In Ontario, Freedom matched scores from Big Three winners in four of seven categories, but did not claim any wins in B.C. or Alberta. You can view the full details here.
Finally, it’s worth noting that Opensignal collected the data for the report between April 1st and June 29th, 2021. Those interested can read the full Opensignal methodology here.
Source: Opensignal 5G Experience Report, Opensignal Mobile Network Experience Report
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