Here is an overview of PCMag’s 2023 Best Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Alberta. Thanks to new ranking methodology, PCMag is no longer just looking at who is the fastest – they’re also considering customer satisfaction, coverage, and price. That allows them to form a more comprehensive view of Canadian ISPs and how they work in the real world for real customers. The more in-depth methodology has also allowed them to break the figures down by province.
In this article, we dig into the numbers to determine who is best overall and in each of the four categories for Alberta.
The Overall Winners Are:
- Telus PureFibre
- Shaw
- TekSavvy
When all the categories are taken into consideration, Telus PureFibre is by far and away the top ISP in Alberta. It is the fastest ISP, and it has the best pricing (along with Rogers). It has a solid customer rating, and it covers 80% of the province. SpaceX Starlink and Xplore cover more of the province, while TekSavvy and Shaw have higher customer ratings, but altogether, Telus comes out on top.
When broken down by category, things get shaken up. We’ll be looking at the top ten ISPs overall for these next comparisons.
The top three fastest ISPs in Alberta were Telus PureFibre, Eastlink, and Shaw, who had media speeds of 276.5, 221.2, and 175.7, respectively. The other companies were less than half as fast. Oxio, the fourth fastest, gets a media speed of 58.6.
For coverage, satellite companies SpaceX Starlink and Xplore can’t be beat, but most of the companies cover around 80% of the province. In fact, only Eastlink, Rogers and CIK Telecom cover 10% or less of the area. Telus offers the best deal, charging just $0.04 per Mbps. Rogers comes in second, charging $0.05. Third place goes to Primus (part of Distributel), Oxio, and TekSavvy, who all charge $0.08. A few providers charge well above this, however. Xplore charges $1.20, SpaceX Starlink charges $1.40, and Bell DSL charges $2.00 per Mbps. Of the six ISPs that received responses in PCMag’s reader choice survey (from highest score to lowest: TekSavvy, Shaw, Eastlink, Telus DSL, Telus PureFibre, and Rogers) all scored between 6.7 and 8.1, showing that their customers are pretty happy with the services they receive.
As you can see, larger national ISPs hold the most advantage thanks to their combinations of coverage, name recognition, and pricing. Still, when the categories get broken down, there are many areas, usually speed and customer satisfaction, where smaller companies can really shine through. The ‘best’ ISP is the one that fits a customer’s need best, whether they prefer a personal touch, a speedy connection or just great value. With these rankings, it should be even easier for consumers to find the right ISP for them.