Each year, we perform a deep dive into testing data from Canadian internet service providers (ISPs) to determine which are best suited for gaming. To achieve this, we focus on connection quality. It’s an aspect of your broadband that is crucial not just in Fortnite frag fests and chats with the squad during cloud-based games, but also in other aspects of online life, such as financial trading, VoIP calls, and video conferencing.
The quality of the connection—measured in terms of the delays caused by slow packets (latency) and the stuttering from uneven traffic flow (jitter)—can fluctuate even more than the speed (aka throughput) from ISP to ISP. Additionally, it should be noted that lag and latency often do not disappear, even on an ultra-high-speed connection from a broadband provider.
“Increasing bandwidth can sometimes improve overall comfort, but higher speeds do not inherently guarantee better latency or lower jitter,” says Guillaume Marcade, the CTO and co-founder of PlanHub, our primary data partner for this story.
Our annual report on the Best Gaming ISPs in Canada utilizes data from thousands of speed tests conducted across all provinces. Beyond quality, we factor in the ISP’s speed, coverage, affordability (specifically the dollar per Megabit per second [Mbps] figure of a provider’s highest-tier service), and overall satisfaction. That last measure comes from our most recent Readers’ Choice survey of Canadian ISPs.
We combine all these metrics into our Cumulative Gaming ISP Index, which spans from 1 to 60, and provides an instant look at which ISP is the best in every way and how they all stack up against one another.
This year, we’re also recognizing the highest-quality ISPs—those with the best connections, regardless of speed. We measure connection quality by calculating the median latency and jitter scores earned by an ISP and then combining them to obtain a quality index. The lowest number indicates the ISP is the least likely to experience any lag, stutter, or other connection problems.
Live in the US? Read our report on The Best Gaming ISPs for the US. If you’re curious about how our ISP ranking system works, please refer to the details in our comprehensive methodology.
Before we dive in, some definitions. For our purposes, a “major” ISP is any provider that has coverage across multiple provinces, serves millions of customers, and, to narrow things down, has had at least 1,000 speed tests performed across Canada over the past year.
The number of ISPs categorized as major has been on the decline in recent years. In 2024, we had 25, and last year there were 23. This year, the list comprises only 13 ISPs. Some of this is due to fewer tests, but more of it is due to consolidation: Canadian telecoms are constantly undergoing mergers and acquisitions. For example, Shaw Communications was wholly acquired in 2023 by Rogers, one of the country’s big three telco power players (Bell and Telus are the other two).
Bell, Rogers, and Telus are also mobile providers; their wireless services also appear on the major ISPs list. Those wireless services are not technically ISPs, but they nevertheless offer internet access, and many people test their mobile data plans with our internet speed test.
Meanwhile, Bell continues to consolidate its many brands under one umbrella—you’ll read more about that below. Brands that were previously tested more frequently and thus considered major ISPs, such as Ebox and Virgin, appear below only when the threshold of responses is lowered to 100. Those two, and many other smaller players, are owned by the big three. Some independent ISPs, such as Auracom and TekSavvy, achieve major status by licensing lines from other ISPs to expand their reach.
Also, note that while we convert most of our measures in this story to a 1-to-10 scale, we convert gaming quality to a 1-to-20 scale to give that metric the weight it deserves for this particular story.
The Best Major Gaming ISPs in Canada
For the fifth consecutive year, Bell is our Best Gaming ISP, thanks to the highest PCMag Cumulative Gaming ISP Index score and the strongest overall quality performance.
Last year at this time, Bell was also the fastest ISP nationwide. However, this time around, that accolade goes to Rogers, based on a combination of tests for that brand and ones for Shaw, which you’ll recall Rogers acquired.
This marks a major improvement for Rogers, which was behind Bell and Telus in speed on the national level last year. Rogers, by the way, is now using the Xfinity brand name for its internet and TV services. (It licensed Xfinity’s name and apps from Comcast in the US.) However, its speed test results are all credited to “Rogers,” since the underlying provider hasn’t changed.
Rogers is likely hampered somewhat by its reliance on a hybrid fiber-coax architecture, unlike Bell and Telus, which are almost purely fiber, PlanHub’s Marcade says. He adds that Rogers’s “last mile is often still delivered over shared coaxial cable, which inherently increases exposure to jitter and congestion, especially during peak hours.”
Bell wins with an index score of 52.91 out of a maximum of 60, besting archrival Telus by just 3/100ths of a point. Telus has the better speed ranking this year, but trails in other key areas, including gaming quality.
“The gap observed between Bell Canada and Telus PureFibre in terms of latency and jitter is most likely explained by a combination of structural factors rather than by any significant weakness in Telus’s network, which remains excellent overall,” Marcade says. “On Bell’s side, a key advantage lies in the maturity and density of its fiber-to-the-home (FttH) network, particularly in Eastern Canada.”
The Best Overall ISPs for Gaming in Canada
Even when we drop the threshold for inclusion in the list to 100 tests nationwide, Bell is the big winner. It’s an impressive feat for a company with a massive footprint rolling out fiber lines (and sharing those lines with other smaller ISPs, as is the rule of law in Canada, much to Bell’s chagrin).
There are many small fiber-to-the-home providers across all the provinces that compete by serving just a minuscule fraction of what Bell, Rogers, or Telus accommodate. Bell bests them all.
Even if you look at Bell only on the merits of its PCMag Gaming Quality Index (the number we get by adding up its median latency and jitter scores; for more, see our methodology), it’s almost impossible to beat.
However, one ISP does for quality. Beanfield is a small provider that started with fiber to multi-dwelling units (MDUs, aka apartments and condos) in Toronto. It’s expanding slowly and carefully, maintaining ultra-high quality scores. It barely even registers in our results for coverage due to its small footprint, and it isn’t the fastest. Overall, Beanfield ranks number 12 in the country, but it’s the ISP to get if what you care about most is connection quality.
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Across Canada, several ISPs are also registering faster median upload and download speeds than Bell and its major rivals, Rogers and Telus. Ranking above those big three are—from slowest to fastest—Beanfield, Standard Broadband in rural Southern Ontario, FlexNetworks in Saskatchewan (and around the capital in Ottawa), and at the very top, our longtime speed winner, Ontario’s telMAX.
“Operators such as Beanfield, telMAX, and FlexNetworks own and operate their own end-to-end FttH networks, unlike third-party internet access (TPIA) providers, which rely on the access network of a host operator,” Marcade says. “This full control over the infrastructure gives them a structural advantage in terms of latency and jitter.”
The Best ISPs for Gaming by Province
Canadians tend to have more ISP options than US residents, as many different Canadian ISPs can lease the same lines. Still, it’s the owner of the line that typically has priority and usually shows the best quality connection. Across the nation, the trend this year, as in the past, is that Telus is best in the West, and Bell owns everything from Manitoba to the East.
This map is largely the same as last year, with two exceptions: Bell is now reporting its tests in Manitoba as simply “Bell Canada,” not “Bell MTS.” And this year, we don’t have information on users in Prince Edward Island. For more details by province, see below.
Telus has homefield advantage in Alberta, having started in Edmonton before it became a telco powerhouse. It’s once again the top gaming ISP for the province, with the best speed, quality, and pricing. Rogers (with all those former Shaw customers) comes in second, but it’s almost 10 points behind.
Similarly, British Columbia belongs to Telus. With fewer players on the board, Telus’s outstanding quality, speed, and pricing stand out even more. It’s also the ISP with the province’s highest brand satisfaction ratings, as determined by our annual Readers’ Choice survey.
Recommended by Our Editors
The tests here say Bell now, but it’s still marketed as Bell MTS in Manitoba, stemming from Bell’s takeover of Manitoba Telecom Services in 2017. Owning the local service pays off here for the triumphant Bell, which has our top ratings for gaming quality and price.
When it comes to speed, the top ISP in Manitoba is RFNOW, a provider that is, in its own words, “bridging the digital divide across rural Manitoba and Saskatchewan” using fiber. It boasts speed levels that rival the big three on the national level, plus it’s one of those unique ISPs that offer a much higher upload speed than download speed.
In order to keep this in alphabetical order, we’ll now jump to the Atlantic Coast. New Brunswick is the province with the smallest number of eligible entries; it only has enough tests to show Bell and Rogers this year. Bell, which won handily last time around, takes the trophy again, although by a narrower margin. Bell’s got the best scores for gaming quality and high numbers for its coverage and satisfaction, but Rogers has the edge on price and speed.
Newfoundland and Labrador have only three contenders this year: Bell, Rogers, and Eastlink, a privately held telecommunications company based in Nova Scotia. Just like last year, Bell is tops in this province thanks to the best scores for quality, coverage, and price. Rogers is first for speed. Eastlink beats both for reader satisfaction, but this is a contest determined by cumulative scores.
Bell registers yet another pair of wins in Nova Scotia, with the best scores for quality, speed, price, and coverage. The only subcategory in which it falls below the competition is for reader satisfaction, where the local ISP, Eastlink, is slightly ahead.
Over one-third of Canada’s population resides in Ontario, so it is not surprising that it has the highest number of ISPs. A variety of providers do well here. telMAX, our national speed winner, also takes that title for the province (as it did last year). Our national winner for Highest Quality Gaming ISP, Beanfield, takes that same award in Ontario for the second consecutive year.
The ISP with our highest Cumulative Gaming ISP Index score, however, is once again Bell. Its gaming quality score is 19.6 out of 20—pretty close to Beanfield’s perfect 20—and it scores a 10 for pricing. Rogers comes in second, while telMAX manages third, even without much in the way of coverage and no satisfaction rating whatsoever from our survey.
Our list of ISP contenders in Quebec dropped from 30 to 16 this year. Videotron doesn’t seem to have much advantage here on its home turf, landing in fifth. Bell again takes the top spot, with the highest Cumulative Gaming ISP Index score in any of the charts this year. Bell is a full seven points ahead of second-place Telus, and 10 points ahead of third-place Virgin Plus. EBOX, which is owned by Bell, is in fourth.
The winners in the southern Canadian province of Saskatchewan are the same as last year. SaskTel, the province-owned and operated telco, wins the Best Gaming ISP title again. It doesn’t have a perfect score in any measure, which isn’t unusual, but it does have the best Readers’ Choice satisfaction rating and huge reach across the province.
Tops for speed is FlexNetworks for the second year in a row; it’s also the winner for Highest Quality Gaming ISP in the province.
Note that we did not receive enough tests for any ISPs in Prince Edward Island, nor any of the Territories (the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut), to include in this story.
The Best Canadian Gaming ISPs: Full Results
Here are the complete tables for all the charts above, including ISPs beyond the top 10 in each location mentioned above. Access each table using the arrows or drop-down menu at the top; click the top cell for each column to reorder the rows (and click again to reorder in the opposite direction), or use the search to find a specific ISP.
Scores for speed and quality are based on 117,245 PCMag Speed Test results from Canadian ISP users received between Nov. 1, 2024, and Dec. 6, 2025. For the full methodology, click here. Click below to test your ISP right now with the PCMag Speed Test.
About Our Expert
Eric Griffith
Senior Editor, Features
Experience
I’ve been writing about computers, the internet, and technology professionally since 1992, more than half of that time with PCMag. I arrived at the end of the print era of PC Magazine as a senior writer. I served for a time as managing editor of business coverage before settling back into the features team for the last decade and a half. I write features on all tech topics, plus I handle several special projects, including the Readers’ Choice and Business Choice surveys and yearly coverage of the Best ISPs and Best Gaming ISPs, Best Products of the Year, and Best Brands (plus the Best Brands for Tech Support, Longevity, and Reliability).
I started in tech publishing right out of college, writing and editing stories about hardware and development tools. I migrated to software and hardware coverage for families, and I spent several years exclusively writing about the then-burgeoning technology called Wi-Fi. I was on the founding staff of several magazines, including Windows Sources, FamilyPC, and Access Internet Magazine. All of which are now defunct, and it’s not my fault. I have freelanced for publications as diverse as Sony Style, Playboy.com, and Flux. I got my degree at Ithaca College in, of all things, television/radio. But I minored in writing so I’d have a future.
In my long-lost free time, I wrote some novels, a couple of which are not just on my hard drive: BETA TEST (“an unusually lighthearted apocalyptic tale,” according to Publishers’ Weekly) and a YA book called KALI: THE GHOSTING OF SEPULCHER BAY. Go get them on Kindle.
I work from my home in Ithaca, NY, and did it long before pandemics made it cool.
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