LONDON, U.K. — While rural Canadians have seen slight improvements in average mobile download speeds over the last 12 months, the gap between rural users’ download speed experience has become more prominent compared to networks in large urban centres, according to the latest analysis from analytics company Opensignal.
Generally speaking, Opensignal says rural users on Bell, Rogers and Telus’ mobile networks experience average download speeds which are less than half than those of its users in large population centres (PCs) on all three carriers.
For its analysis, Opensignal compared the mobile network experience of rural users, which make up almost 20% of Canada’s population, to urban users, which for the purposes of comparison are divided into those located in small, medium and large PCs.
According to Opensignal, rural Canadian users across all three carriers’ networks saw their average download speeds improve between 0.3 Mbps to 0.6 Mbps in the first quarter of 2021, compared to Q1 2020. (Please see the chart above.) In Q1 2021, the download speed experience in rural Canada ranged between 34.9 Mbps (on Rogers) and 48.4 Mbps (on Telus). The average download speed for rural users on Bell was 44.2 Mbps.
However, in large PCs, Opensignal’s users on Rogers saw their average download speeds increase significantly by 11.8 Mbps to 74.9 Mbps in Q1 2021, while those on Bell saw average speeds increase by 3.6 Mbps to 97.5 Mbps. Opensignal’s urban users on Telus’ network experienced a slight decrease in average download speeds of 0.7 Mbps to 99.2 Mbps.
“As a result of these changes, the gap in download speed experience between rural Canada and its large PCs has accentuated further on Bell and Rogers, compared to our last report — by 2.9 Mbps on Bell and 11.3 Mbps on Rogers — while that on Telus has shrunk slightly by 1 Mbps,” reads Opensignal’s report.
Looking at 4G availability (please see the chart below), Opensignal says the rural-urban divide in 4G availability has diminished across all three networks since its last rural analysis by 1.2 to 2.5 percentage points depending on the operator and the size of PC.
“Canadian rural users are able to spend at least 89.9% of their time connected to 4G,” reads the report, adding further down, “In Q1 2021, the 4G availability in urban Canada ranges between 93.4% — on Rogers’ network in small PCs — and 95.9% on Telus’ network in large PCs.
“In rural Canada, our users reported slight improvements in 4G availability. Our users on Bell saw an improvement of 1.5 points, followed by our users on Telus and Rogers, who reported modest increases of 1 percentage point. With all these changes, the 4G availability in rural Canada oscillates between 89.9% on Bell and 90.2% on Rogers. This means that 4G users in rural Canadian are able to connect to a 4G service almost nine out of 10 times, which is extremely impressive,” adds the report.
“The mobile experience in Canada — both urban and rural — has improved drastically over the years and, on average, is significantly higher than in many other countries globally. However, Opensignal’s analysis shows that the urban/rural divide in the mobile experience continues to exist in the country. While the operators and government have been addressing this issue, it is evident that there is more to be done to remove the rural-urban gap,” concludes the report.
