Internet in Canada

Canada ranks as the 20th country in the world for Internet usage with 26.96 million users.

Web use

Canadian web users are similar to those in the other countries. The most popular sites in Canada are the major international ones, such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN.

The most popular native Canadian sites are those of the major Canadian news companies, all of which maintain an extensive web presence. According to a February 2008 report by comScore, the most popular Canadian sites are those of Quebecor Media, principally Canoe.ca, followed closely by the sites of CTVglobemedia which includes globeandmail.com and CTV.ca.

File sharing

Main: File sharing in Canada

Canada has the greatest number of file sharers per capita in the world according to a report by the OECD.

Canada's copyright laws are unclear on the legality of some file trading. In general, the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted material, whether for profit or for personal use, is illegal under Canada's Copyright Act. However, certain exemptions are made for fair dealing copying of small portions of copyrighted works, for activities such as private study, criticism, and news reporting. Furthermore, the Act allows that the copying of sound recordings of musical works for the personal use of the person who makes the copy, is not copyright infringement. This is supported by a levy on blank recording media, which is distributed to record labels and musicians. While the unauthorized downloading or uploading of complete copyrighted works such as books, movies, or software is illegal under the Act, the situation regarding music files is more complex.

Fibre optic networks

Fibre cabling was already deployed by BCE in Ontario and Quebec using FTTN deployment. On February 4, 2010, Bell Canada announced the launch of Fibe 25 services and Bells plan to create FTTH or Fibre to the home services, offering speeds up to 100 Mbit/s. Shaw Cable is currently running field trials of 1 Gbit/s Ethernet fibre to the premises in select locations in Vancouver and Calgary.

Broadband offerings

The following table summarizes residential broadband offerings in Canada. None of them are available nation-wide and the chart does not include bandwidth caps, abilities of customer equipment, or the speeds after Peer-to-peer Traffic shaping. In particular, some products are 'up to' the speed quoted and may not deliver that speed in all areas. Some companies have more than 4 plans and plans may change at any time, so this list is not comprehensive.

Service Provider	Economy	Standard	Advanced	Fastest
Shaw	1 Mbit/s down, 256 kbit/s up	7.5 Mbit/s down, 512 kbit/s up	25, 50, 100 250 Mbit/s down, 2.5, 5 or 15 Mbit/s up	1 GB/s down
Rogers Hi-Speed Internet	3 Mbit/s down, 256 kbit/s up	18 Mbit/s down, 512 kbit/s up	28 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up	75 Mbit/s down, 2 Mbit/s up
Vidéotron	3 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	8 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up	15, 30 or 60 Mbit/s down, 1.5, 2 or 3 Mbit/s up	120 Mbit/s down, 20 Mbit/s up
Cogeco	3 Mbit/s down ? Mbit/s up	14 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up	16 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up	50 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up
EastLink	1.5 Mbit/s down, 128 kbit/s up	5 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up	20 or 40 Mbit/s down, 1 or 2 Mbit/s up (Depending on availability)	100 Mbit/s down, 5 Mbit/s up
Bell Internet	2 Mbit/s down 800 Kbit/s up	6 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up	16 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up	25 Mbit/s down, 7 Mbit/s up
Bell Aliant	1.5 Mbit/s up, 640 Kbit/s down	7 Mbit/s down, 640 kbit/s up	15 Mbit/s down, 15 Mbit/s up	170 Mbit/s down, 30 Mbit/s up
Deveca	512 kbit/s down, 512 kbit/s up	5 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	Business 6 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	1 to 30 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up
Nexicom	514 Kbit/s down, 512 Kbit/s up	2 Mbit/s down, 256 kbit/s up	5 to 20 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up (Depending on availability)	N/A
Telus	Up to 1 Mbit/s down, Up to 256 kbit/s up	1.5 to 6.0 Mbit/s down, Up to 1.0 Mbit/s up	10.0 to 15.0 Mbit/s down, Up to 1.0 Mbp/s up	21.0 to 25.0 Mbit/s, Up to 2.0 Mbit/s up
SaskTel	256 kbit/s down, 128 kbit/s up	1.5 or 5 Mbit/s down, 128, 384 or 640 kbit/s up (Depending on availability)	10 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	25 Mbit/s down, 2 Mbit/s up
MTS (Speeds listed require subscription to MTS TV)	256 kbit/s down, 256 kbit/s up	7.5 Mbit/s down, 2 Mbit/s up	15 Mbit/s down, 2 Mbit/s up	25 Mbit/s down, 2 Mbit/s up
Colbanet	N/A	5 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	N/A	24 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up
TekSavvy	512 kbit/s down, 512 kbit/s up	5 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	Business 6 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	10 or 30 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up
Telehop	N/A	3 Mbit/s down, 256 kbit/s up	10 Mbit/s down, 512 kbit/s up	15 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up
Acanac	N/A	6 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up (DSL)	12 Mbit/s down, 512 kbit/s up (Cable Ontario) 8 Mbit/s down, 1000 kbit/s up (Cable Quebec) (Depending on availability)	24 Mbit/s down, 1000 kbit/s up (Cable Ontario) 30 Mbit/s down, 2000 kbit/s up (Cable Quebec) (Depending on availability)
ElectronicBox	640 Kbit/s down, 512 Kbit/s up or 3 Mbit/s down, 400 Kbit/s up	5 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up or 8 Mbit/s down, 1 Mbit/s up	15 Mbit/s down, 1.5 Mbit/s up or 30 Mbit/s down, 2 Mbit/s up	60 Mbit/s down, 3 Mbit/s up
Novus	25 Mbit/s down, 10 Mbit/s up	50 Mbit/s down, 10 Mbit/s up	100 Mbit/s down, 10 Mbit/s up	300 Mbit/s down, 15 Mbit/s up
Velcom	512 kbit/s down, 512 kbit/s up	5 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	6 Mbit/s down, 800 kbit/s up	N/A
Yak Telecommunications	2Mbps download /800kb upload	5Mbps download/800kb upload	10Mbps download/800kb upload	N/A

The legal definition of broadband in Canada is 1.5 Mbit/s (megabits per second)^{[citation needed]}. This is essentially the bandwidth required to transmit compressed VGA (640x480) motion video with modest quality. However, in recent years the competition between the major broadband Internet providers has caused frequent increases in the available bandwidth provided to home users.

Regional Canadian ISPs peer through a few major Internet Exchange Points, the most notable of which is the Toronto Internet Exchange. However, these regional networks usually share the same backbones for longer distance connectivity.

The largest DSL provider in Canada is Bell Internet (formerly Bell Sympatico). Bell owns and maintains physical layer connectivity through a combination of optical fibre networks, DSLAM and Customer Premise Equipment. Few other DSL providers have comparable network infrastructure so a lot of them instead use lines provided by Bell. Their speed is however limited to 5 Mbps down, 800 kbps up for residential lines. ADSL is the predominant technology while ADSL2+ is quickly emerging as the new standard, fueled by the urgency to compete with cable companies in the digital TV market. In British Columbia (BC), Alberta (AB), and parts of Quebec (QC), the incumbent telco is Telus, owning the DSLAMs, the fibre, and provides many services Bell does, however at slower speeds. An example of the speed difference is a standard DSL line in BC/A is 1.5 Mbps, while a standard DSL line in Ontario(ON)/QC can be up to 25 Mbps; the top tier internet speed is 14 Mbps/s in BC/AB and 25 Mbps/s in ON/QC.

The other major players offering DSL and IPTV services are Sasktel in Saskatchewan and Manitoba Telecom Services (MTS) in Manitoba. Download speeds are up to 8 Mbps, though recent upgrades now make HDTV and much higher rates possible.^{[citation needed]}

For Cable offerings, standard North American DOCSIS based equipment are used.

Usage-based billing (UBB)

See also: Bandwidth cap

Internet bandwidth limits and caps are considered by many to be too restrictive, due to the increasing popularity of online streaming media services such as Netflix, which require large amounts of bandwidth.

The decision to impose bandwidth caps on smaller independent ISPs caused controversy in 2011 when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), Canada's telecommunications regulator, approved a request by Bell Internet to begin, on March 1, 2011, to apply a bandwidth cap on the users of smaller independent ISPs who use Bell's last mile infrastructure. This new billing structure is called "usage-based billing" or UBB.

Bell pushed for a cap as small as 25 gigabytes of transfer per month, plus a $1-2 CAD surcharge for every GB over the limit. The stated intent was to prevent the customers of independent ISPs from congesting Bell's network, because many independent ISPs offer service with unlimited bandwidth, while most major Canadian ISPs do not. The CRTC was criticized for allowing Bell to use anti-competitive practices to favour its own Internet and television offerings. Bell is also under fire for forcing its own pricing structure and business on its wholesalers. Bell admits that only about 10 percent of its subscribers (at the time of said download cap) exceed their limit, resulting in additional billing.

Many savvy Internet users also accuse Bell of falsifying information to the public regarding network congestion. Network congestion is primarily caused by many users accessing the Internet at the same time (after school/work, 5pm-10pm) and not by heavy users alone.

On February 2, 2011, industry minister Tony Clement and Prime Minister Stephen Harper called on the CRTC to reverse the decision. The next day, the CRTC announced that it would delay its decision by 60 days.

There are some supporters for usage-based-billing (UBB) at reasonable rates instead of the current $2/GB. Wholesalers, such as TekSavvy, provides its cable Internet services at $37/month with 300GB (12¢/GB). Retailers, such as Rogers, provide service at the same speed 10Mbps/512kbps at $47/month with 60GB (78¢/GB). The difference of 56¢/GB between the wholesaler's and incumbent's pricing is one of the main reasons why UBB supporters are against UBB. They fear that the incumbents would gouge Internet users by charging them more than 12¢/GB. Some also claim that it costs the incumbents (Rogers, Bell, Shaw Communications, and Telus) as low as 3¢ to send 1GB of data through. Supporters also suggest that instead of a penalty-based system (heavy users pay more), a credit-based system (light users be credited back monthly) would be much more consumer friendly and fair.

See also

• Science and technology in Canada
• Social networking in Canada
• Demographics of the Canadian political blogosphere
• Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia initiative
• CANARIE, ORION — research and education networks in Canada
• Canadian Internet Registration Authority — Canada's top-level domain registrar in charge of .ca

External links

• DSL Reports - Extensive site on broadband with user reports from around the USA and Canada