Image source: freepik
Key takeaways
· Network availability and speed are the primary markers of reliability
· Newfoundland and Labrador has the fastest internet in Canada
· Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Vancouver, and London have the highest internet speeds
· The fastest mobile internet is in Winnipeg
Internet backbone refers to the principal data routes between large, interconnected networks and core routers that form the foundational framework of the internet. These backbone networks carry the majority of data traffic across Canada and other regions. They use high-capacity, high-speed data connections, often implemented with fiber-optic cables. These links can handle vast amounts of data.
Backbone providers connect at strategic locations known as Internet Exchange Points, where different networks exchange traffic to ensure seamless global connectivity.
Tier 1 networks often provide the internet backbone. They own extensive infrastructure and peer with each other to share traffic, so they don’t pay for transit. They can reach each online network through settlement-free interconnection only.
Tier 1 networks have various levels of VM bandwidth capabilities, ranging from 50 Gbps to 200 Gbps. As of 2024, their data centers’ uptime percentage is 99.67%, equivalent to less than 29 hours of potential downtime annually.
Measuring internet backbone reliability
No single centralized organization or authority is responsible for categorizing internet backbone reliability. A number of entities gather statistics and data related to Tier-1 providers. The assessment involves extensive tracking, surveys, analytics, insights, and evaluation of market presence. Markers of reliability include network availability and speed. Network availability is calculated by dividing uptime by the uptime added to the downtime and multiplying the result by 100.
The MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) is another indicator of internet backbone reliability. It denotes the average time between network failures. Obviously, the higher it is, the more reliable the network.
The link to web hosting
Internet backbone may be challenging to calculate, but that doesn’t mean your Canadian web hosting provider isn’t affected by it. Web hosting servers store and serve websites, applications, and data to users. When a user accesses a website, the data travels across the backbone from the hosting server to the user’s device. If the backbone is reliable, data transmission happens quickly and smoothly, ensuring a good user experience.
High-reliability Canadian backbone networks are designed with redundancy, meaning there are alternative routes for data in case of a failure, such as malfunctioning equipment. For web hosting companies, backbone reliability is crucial to maintaining the 99%+ uptime guarantees that customers have come to expect. If the backbone isn’t dependable, even well-managed hosting servers could become unreachable due to bottlenecks or network outages.
Internet speeds across Canadian regions
Internet speeds vary based on the service provider, location, and number of devices currently using the internet. A download speed of 25 Mbps tends to suffice for streaming video on a desktop, laptop, or mobile device. You would typically need a download speed of 100 Mbps if multiple devices were downloading or streaming data at once.
Recent speed test data from HP sheds light on each Canadian province and territory’s ranking in terms of the average fixed internet download speeds, measured in Mbps, or megabits per second.
Newfoundland and Labrador has the fastest internet with 119.77 Mbps, followed by New Brunswick and British Columbia with 117.29 Mbps and 110.45 Mbps. Nova Scotia and Alberta are fourth and fifth with 105.04 Mbps and 91.81 Mbps. Nunavut is last with just 15.00 Mbps. This is the least populous province in Canada, with fewer than 40,000 people occupying its vast territory (approx. 695,000 square miles).
The five Canadian cities with the fastest median internet download speeds are Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, Vancouver, and London (129.60, 120.36, 118.78, 99.89, 99.15 Mbps). More populous cities like Montreal and Toronto rank lower. The internet speeds in those cities tend to be below 100 Mbps. The fastest provider in Calgary offers a median download speed of 191.79 Mbps.
As for the highest mobile internet speeds, Winnipeg comes first with 93.12 Mbps, followed by Edmonton and Calgary with 91.25 Mbps and 90.21 Mbps. Halifax, with 86.53 Mbps, and London, with 86.24 Mbps, round out the top five.
