You might think that Canada’s reputation for politeness extends to the broadband market. You’d be wrong. The situation is as cutthroat as it is in the US. But at least the government there tries to help.
The Canadian telco regulatory body, the CRTC, “is pushing for more competition through wholesale fiber licensing,” explains Jonathan Lamont, the editor-in-chief of Canada-centric tech site MobileSyrup. “[That] allows ISPs to leverage competitors’ fiber networks to sell services in areas where they don’t have their own infrastructure.”
In populated areas, this wholesale fiber licensing can help with internet pricing. But the country is vast, with many areas of extremely low population density, giving providers little reason to put in networks there. Installing fiber requires a lot of work—it’s more of a construction business than a tech trade. It’s a huge cost sink for even big corporations, which is why it’s not as common in Canada as anyone would like, be they providers or potential customers.
And not all the corporations play nice. “While the goal is to increase competition,” Lamont says, “we’ve seen the big players undercut smaller ISPs and then buy them out, and we’ve also seen the big players threaten to cut infrastructure investment in response to the wholesale program.”
Meanwhile, remote areas are better served by satellite services, which translates to much higher costs for customers.
Frankly, it’s all a bit of a mess. Yet, you can find Canadian ISPs that blend great speed, low price, extensive coverage, and customer satisfaction. And we’re here to help you sort among them.
How We Find the Best ISP
A couple of years ago, we changed our approach to ISPs to consider much more than just speed and throughput. We now partner with Planhub, using its data about the area Canadian ISPs cover and how much their services cost. We take all that—plus data from our own survey, in which we asked Canadians about ISP satisfaction—and generate a cumulative metric. It pits ISPs against each other, head-to-head, no matter their size, their price, or the tech they use for connections.
We do this by creating an index from one to 10 for each metric (you’ll see them as the Speed Index, Price Index, Coverage Index, and the Readers’ Choice Overall Satisfaction in our charts) and adding them up to create a final score called the PCMag Cumulative Broadband ISP Index. Read our methodology for the full info on how this works.
Below we break down the best ISPs and the fastest ISPs among the major players, across every ISP we have data for, and on a province-by-province basis. If you’re lucky, your home is in the coverage area for one of our top picks.
Help us with the next Best ISPs story. Take our Speed Test now to contribute data about your provider. (Editors’ Note: The PCMag Speed Test is provided by Ookla, which is owned by PCMag’s parent company, Ziff Davis.)
If you’re into online gaming, also read The Best Gaming ISPs for Canada. And if you’re reading this in one of those 50 states, not provinces, check out our best ISP rankings for the US.
The Best Major Canadian ISPs
Major ISPs in Canada have to manage millions of customers across multiple provinces. To be considered for this story, a major ISP must have users deliver a minimum of 1,000 tests to the PCMag Speed Test. The country’s three giant telcos, Bell, Rogers, and Telus, tend to dominate through their sheer size and familiarity. This year is no exception. They’re all back, with Bell Canada‘s fiber service on top.
Last time, Bell Canada dominated in terms of speed and price; this year, it only rules in terms of the latter. Bell and Telus tie for customer satisfaction numbers pulled from our Readers’ Choice survey for Canadian ISPs. Bell also trumps Rogers and Telus for coverage.
“Bell’s main strength is a pretty extensive fiber network covering multiple provinces,” MobileSyrup’s Lamont says. “That network allows it to have higher speeds overall and symmetrical speeds in terms of upload and download, which really boosts its standing.” That network wasn’t enough for it to earn the fastest ISP slot this year in our tests, however.
Meanwhile, Telus is once again the fastest major ISP in the country after taking 2024 off. Last year, Bell was the fastest. It’s a sign of intense competition that only benefits customers.
Rogers remains a perpetual third-place finisher in the list of major ISPs, even after buying up all the assets of Shaw Communications and integrating those users into its network. But Rogers’ rejuvenation can be seen in many provinces (see below). Other providers like Videotron and Cogeco try but can’t match the big three for throughput.
Unsurprisingly, the ISP with the most coverage in the nation is satellite-based Starlink, but parts of the country have their own issues with Starlink and its CEO, Elon Musk.
The Best Canadian ISPs Overall
Our list of ISPs with enough speed tests to make the cut this year dropped from 74 to 54. According to PlanHub, some of the smaller ISPs that we have data on don’t really operate anymore, having been absorbed into their owners’ networks. For example, Primus was owned by Distributel, which is, in turn, owned by Bell—but the Primus site is no more, and Distributel’s site sends new customers to Bell.
That kind of thing is common in Canada, according to Lamont: “We get a lot of smaller ISPs that start off doing [ISP] reselling”—licensing use of lines to sell service on—”and then usually end up getting gobbled up by a bigger player at some point.”
Across the country overall, the big three again make a great showing. Bell is number one, with Telus trailing it by a full point on its cumulative score.
Number three is a bit of a surprise. Oxio is owned by Cogeco but is attempting to stay independent. This year, Oxio shines through with good coverage (it licenses use of the networks of Rogers and others) and pricing, and knocks it out of the park with customer satisfaction in our Reader’s Choice survey, earning an 8.0 out of 10.
Rogers itself is in fourth. TekSavvy is in fifth thanks to great coverage obtained by leasing lines across a number of major ISP networks, including the big three, Cogeco, and Videotron.
If you only care about speed, however, you need to move to the greater Toronto area, where telMAX provides service. This is the small ISP’s fourth year as our absolute fastest provider in the land—quite a feat considering telMAX itself is less than a decade old.
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“If you are shopping for internet in Canada, the best thing you can do is just search and find every provider that services your area,” Lamont says. “Because chances are there’s some small provider that is either reselling lines from a bigger provider or is doing their own thing in a very small footprint. And generally they’re going to have better pricing and decent—or even really good—service, like in the case of telMAX.”
Other small ISPs, particularly FlexNetworks in Saskatchewan, give telMAX serious competition in the speed department. But telMAX’s throughput is in a class all its own. Its price is also ultra-low, rivaling that of Telus PureFibre but not quite as low as Bell or Beanfield. (The latter supports multi-dwelling unit customers in Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.)
The Best ISPs in Canada by Province
There are some changes to the top ISPs by province this year, with Rogers taking the Best ISP title in three of them, after not earning the top spot in any in 2023 or 2024. Bell MTS and SaskTel return to the fore in their respective stronghold regions. Bell and Telus are the best in the rest. You can see which broadband dominates in each by hovering your cursor (or your finger, if you’re on a mobile device) over the different color provinces.
This year, we did not receive enough speed tests from internet users on Prince Edward Island, nor in the three northern territories of Yukon, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories, to include ISPs offered there.
Below, we break out the best and fastest provincial winners.
Telus is the Best ISP in Alberta for the third year in a row. It owes that win to having the best price and an unbeatable speed score, which in turn earns it the title of the Fastest ISP in the province. Rogers, having moved all of Shaw’s customers to its own network, places second, the same spot it was in for the last two years.
The second-fastest ISP is high-speed rural Alberta provider MCSnet. Its speed index rating rivals many of the majors, and it was fast enough to land MCSnet in sixth place nationwide for speed. Rogers is only fourth for speed in the province; it’s behind Eastlink in Alberta this time around.
The west coast of Canada is traditionally Telus territory; the telco’s main office is in Vancouver. While Telus again leads its home province in speed—it’s the Fastest ISP in British Columbia by a massive margin—and even in price and customer satisfaction, it didn’t do as well in coverage as it has in the past. The top PCMag Cumulative Broadband ISP Index here in 2025 belongs to Rogers.
Years ago, Rogers gave up on British Columbia, giving those assets to Shaw, but it has reentered the market with a vengeance through its acquisition of that same company. “Shaw had a fiber footprint out west that was competitive with Telus,” Lamont says, “so Rogers’ purchase of Shaw gives them that competitive edge.”
Xplore’s fiber option won as Best ISP in Manitoba last year, but didn’t make the cut in 2025. Bell MTS steps up with the best speed and price, coupled with coverage that almost rivals that of Starlink. It has the top cumulative score, making it the Best ISP, plus the best speed index—it’s just ahead of Bell, its sister ISP under the BCE corporation. Bell MTS, it should be noted, has a home-court advantage; it was, after all, once MTS (aka Manitoba Telecom Services).
This area used to be where Bell Aliant offered top service. But now, Aliant’s wires are part of Bell Canada. Only three ISPs earn enough tests to appear in this province, big names all, and each earns a full 10 out of 10 score for at least one of our criteria. Bell has just enough to stay ahead of Rogers again, making it the third time Bell wins the province’s Best ISP award. However, Rogers manages to sprint past its New Brunswick competitors this time around, becoming the province’s Fastest ISP.
Rogers’ year of glory continues with a double win in Newfoundland and Labrador, overtaking past winner Bell. What’s interesting is that Rogers has been the fastest ISP in Newfoundland all three years we’ve been evaluating the Best Canadian ISPs. The big change isn’t in speed, price, or coverage but in Rogers’ improved customer satisfaction score in our Readers’ Choice survey.
For the third year, Bell is the Best and Fastest ISP to be found in Nova Scotia. It doesn’t hurt that the competition is sparse, but Bell’s speed tests don’t lie—it’s faster in Nova Scotia than it is nationally. Plus, it covers a lot more of the province than the others. Eastlink, however, does a little better with our readers when it comes to customer satisfaction.
In our Best ISPs testing, Rogers has never made it above second place in its home province of Ontario—until now. Even though it doesn’t get a 10 in any of our indices, Rogers’ cumulative score is more than three points ahead of the second-place finisher, Virgin Plus, another subsidiary of Bell. And Bell is itself in third, after leading in Ontario for the past two years.
“Here in Ontario, I know Rogers has been working to build out fiber,” Lamont says. “A good chunk of Toronto is covered by Rogers Fiber now. That is contributing to its boost in the rankings.”
Perfect 10s go to Beanfield for price (it’s in 12th place; you can see it in the full tables below), Starlink for coverage, and telMAX for speed—which makes sense since it’s the fastest ISP in the nation. It’s so fast, in fact, that telMAX’s speed index actually dropped, but it still won handily over second-place Standard Broadband.
In Quebec, Bell Canada earned 10s for coverage and price, and it’s no slouch in the speed department, either. Adding up all the numbers gives Bell its third definitive Best ISP title in the province.
Still, EBOX is the fastest, outstripping Bell by quite a bit in our speed index. (But that’s a win for Bell as well: its parent corporation, BCE, has owned EBOX since 2022. It continues to be operated separately, unlike other Bell brands, such as Distributel.) This is a major speed increase for EBOX. Last year, it was fourth in the category, at about one-fifth the speed score of its owner.
Like last year, SaskTel—an ISP owned by the Saskatchewan provincial government—doesn’t have the top scores for coverage, price, or speed. (In the last case, it’s close to the bottom.) But SaskTel’s coverage and pricing are still utterly fantastic. Given that, and its high reader-satisfaction score, the ISP manages its third win at home as Best ISP.
In 2024, the fastest provider in the province was the newly mixed Rogers and Shaw, but that amalgamation is eclipsed this year by 11-year-old FlexNetworks. It says it brought fiber optics to a “record number of previously underserved communities in 2024,” an investment that clearly has paid off. It has speeds that almost rival telMAX’s for the fastest in the nation.
The Best Canadian ISPs for 2025: Full Tables
Here are the complete tables for all the charts above, including the ISPs beyond the Top 10 in each location. Access each table using the arrows or the dropdown menu at the top; click the top cell for each column to reorder the rows (click again to reorder in the other direction). You can also search for keywords or numbers.
Speeds are based on 136,079 PCMag SpeedTest results from Canada-based ISP users received between June 1, 2024, and June 5, 2025. For more, read our methodology.
Click the speed test below to be included in our next full report on The Best ISPs.
About Eric Griffith
Senior Editor, Features
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