Canada’s biggest telecom operators ranked high in 5G gaming performance, an Opensignal report that measured 5G network performance of 106 network operators found.
The Big Three Canadian carriers–Bell, Rogers and Telus–all placed within the top-30 in Opensignal’s 5G Global Mobile Network Experience Awards 2021.
Opensignal’s gaming performance category measures latency, jitter and packet loss during gaming. A higher score indicates a more stable and responsive network connection.
Rogers ranked 12th in global gaming performance, while Telus and Bell ranked 18th and 19th respectively. Furthermore, Opensignal noted that users on Rogers’ networks saw the biggest uplift in gaming experience when compared to 4G in the same period last year, moving a full two ratings higher.
5G availability has been steadily improving as well. Opensignal found that Rogers’ 5G availability increased from 8.3 per cent to 11.1 per cent, a jump of 2.8 per cent, since the report was last done in April. Bell and Telus’ 5G availability had dipped slightly, down 0.2 per cent, in the same period, although Opensignal attributes the marginal decrease to seasonality as availability measurements in Canada tend to dip in summers.
While Canada’s 5G network download speeds were in line with the global average of 175.3Mbps, they weren’t fast enough to beat out more robust networks. According to a separate Opensignal report from August 2021, Bell and Telus were on par with 174.8Mbps and 168.4Mbps respectively, while Rogers trailed at 105.1Mbps. In contrast, the top 22 carriers all had download speeds of above 200Mbps.
Still, 5G speeds significantly outpace 4G. Bell’s 5G network download speeds are 2.5 times faster than its 4G average. Telus’ was 2.2 times faster, and Rogers 1.8 times.
With Canada having just concluded its 3.5GHz mid-band wireless spectrum auction, expect even stronger 5G performance in the near future.