Alberta’s broadband availability as of 2019 is shown in Table 1. As the table demonstrates, practically the entire province (99.7%) has access, at least minimally, to 5 Mbps download speed. The percentage of Albertans able to access the current acceptable standard for high-speed internet — 50 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload — is 87.8%. This is slightly higher than the Canadian average of 87.4%.
Table 1 6
In 2013, the Government of Alberta announced that 98% of Albertans had access to download speeds of at least 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps). This was partly due to the $5.1 million of provincial funding for the Central Alberta Satellite Solution and Final Mile Rural Connectivity Initiative.source source In 2015, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) reported that this accessible speed had grown, with 98% of Alberta households having access to download speeds in excess of 5.0 Mbpssource (see Table 1) and a penetration rate of 81%source. On average, the national speeds were reported to be 18.6 Mbps download and 7.3 Mbps upload in 2015.source Alberta was reported to have lower speeds than the national average, with speeds of 13.5 Mbps download and 5.0 Mbps upload.
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. Broadband Availability in Alberta by Download Speed,
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2019 per CRTC Communications Monitoring Report
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2020
Download Speed | Availability |
...
5. |
...
0 - |
...
24.9 | 99.7 |
...
25.0- |
...
49. |
...
9 | 98.6 |
...
50.0- |
...
99.9 |
...
...
94.7 |
50/10 |
...
86
...
16.0-24.9
...
85
& Unlimited Data Transfer | 87.8 |
100.0 – 999.9 + | 83.6 |
1,000 (Gigabit) | 33.5 |
...
25 +
...
Source: Prepared by Cybera using data from
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2020 CRTC Communications Monitoring Report. These figures exclude satellite technologies.
In April 2014, the Government of Canada released the Digital Canada 150 national digital economy strategy. As part of this strategy, $305 million of the Connecting Canadians program was earmarked to address gaps in the delivery of high-speed internet (at speeds of at least 5 Mbps) to rural and remote communities across the country.source Of this funding, $50 million was designated for Nunavuk and Nunavik,source leaving $255 million for the remainder of Canada. To date, Alberta has received $3.6 million of the Connecting Canadians funding (split between IWantWireless.ca and Arrow Technology Group Ltd) to expand services to a target subscriber base of 6,000 households.source
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However, accurately assessing the current state of broadband services in Alberta is difficult, not least because it is a constantly moving target. Internet Service Providers are often reluctant to give out accurate figures of actual service delivery throughout their service area. Using their advertised services gives an idea of service availability, but in rural areas, this ideal scenario rarely plays out in reality.
Determining accurate broadband speeds for Alberta: the Sturgeon County case study
References
6CRTC. Communications Monitoring Report - 2020, Table 4.2, p. 107. Accessed 01 January 2021
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.