As with the other service categories, there are a number of notable differences in the way in which broadband services are provisioned in some of the surveyed countries compared to Canada:
In some of the surveyed European countries, to obtain a DSL broadband Internet service on a stand-alone basis, the customer must in some cases also lease a landline connection (which adds an additional access line charge).
Fibre and/or DSL-based broadband services offered in the U.K., France, Germany and Italy generally include VoIP and/or IPTV services for a single bundled price. The option of a pure stand-alone broadband Internet service is not available in some cases.
In Japan, broadband Internet service typically consists of two separate service elements: (i) a network access facility (fibre or ADSL), often obtained from NTT and (ii) an Internet access service provided by a third- party ISP. Therefore, there are two fees involved: the broadband access fee and ISP fee.
Table 11 below provides a summary of the unweighted average "advertised" download and upload service speeds of the surveyed broadband services
included in each of the four specified broadband service baskets for Canada and the surveyed foreign jurisdictions.37 The table also includes average monthly
37
While advertised download speeds are readily available, the same is not true for upload speeds. Consequently, the average upload speeds are based on a somewhat lower number of observations compared to average download speeds.
data usage caps for those plans that include data caps which, for the surveyed countries and service providers, were only found in Canada and Australia.
Table 11
2015 International Broadband Internet Services
Average Advertised Speeds and Applicable Data Caps
Baskets Canada U.S. U.K. Australia France Japan * Germany Italy Level 1 Basket ( < 3 Mbps, 5GB/month)
Download Speed (Mbps) 1.9 2.3 na na na 1.3 na na
Upload Speed (Mbps) 0.7 0.9 na na na 0.5 na na
Data Caps (GB) 50 na na na na na na na
Level 2 Basket ( 4 - 15 Mbps, 20 GB/month)
Download Speed (Mbps) 11.1 9.8 na 10.0 8.0 12.0 10.0 7.0
Upload Speed (Mbps) 2.6 3.8 na 0.7 1.0 1.3 0.6 0.4
Data Caps (GB) 135 na na 50 na na na na
Level 3 Basket ( 16 - 40 Mbps, 50 GB/month)
Download Speed (Mbps) 27.5 23.5 38.0 22.5 31.7 35.3 19.0 26.7
Upload Speed (Mbps) 5.6 6.7 9.5 10.0 8.0 1.3 1.5 2.3
Data Caps (GB) 200 na na 200 na na na na
Level 4 Basket ( > 40 Mbps, 75 GB/month)
Download Speed (Mbps) 67.7 76.9 84.0 100.0 100.0 352.6 100.0 100.0 Upload Speed (Mbps) 10.5 18.5 14.5 21.0 27.5 280.6 28.7 13.3
Data Caps (GB) 302 na na 200 na na na na
Average data caps calculated based on surveyed plans with applicable data caps. na = no broadband service available from and/or no applicable data caps applied by the surveyed service providers . * Japan's Level 4 affected by KDDI's 1 Gbps services plan included in the survey. Wall Communications Inc. 2015
As indicated in the table above, Level 1 broadband services are not offered by the surveyed ISPs in the U.K., France, Germany, Italy or Australia. As well, the same applies in the case of Level 2 broadband services in the U.K. It should also be noted that, where available, the number of the surveyed ISPs who provide broadband services that fall into the Level 1 and 2 basket speed ranges has declined; consequently, the average prices and advertised service speeds reported for these two baskets are often based on a limited number of
observations or, in some cases, a single observation. On the other hand, most of the surveyed ISPs provided Level 3 and 4 basket compliant broadband services. Average advertised download speeds for the Level 4 basket vary significantly due to the different underlying technologies offered by the surveyed ISPs (e.g., cable, ADSL, VDSL and fibre). The targeted Level 4 basket download speed range is between 41 and 100 Mbps. However, in Japan, even higher speed services were included in the study since services in the 41 and 100 Mbps range were not available (i.e., 200 Mbps service for NTT, 160 Mbps service for J:Com and 1,000 Mbps for KDDI), which explains the average download of well over
100 Mbps in this case.38 The Level 4 advertised download speeds of the
Canadian broadband services included in the study ranged from 45 to 100 Mbps. The Canadian average advertised download speed was roughly 68 Mbps, which fell below the average speeds for the other surveyed countries.
Level 4 average advertised upload speeds also vary significantly. The most significant differences are associated with fibre-based broadband services
included in the Level 3 and 4 baskets where upload speeds range from 2 Mbps in the case of Telstra's 100 Mbps fibre service to 1000 Mbps in the case of KDDI's 1 Gbps residential broadband service. The Level 4 upload speeds of the
Canadian broadband services included in the study ranged from 3 to 30 Mbps and the average was 10.5 Mbps, which once again falls below the averages for the other surveyed countries.
Figure 7 below provides a comparison of current weighted average broadband service prices for Canada and the seven surveyed foreign jurisdictions for each of the four broadband service level baskets. Table A3.3 and Figures A3.3 a, b, c and d in Attachment 3 provide more detailed historical broadband Internet
service price results for the period 2008 to 2015, as applicable, for each of the four broadband service baskets.
Level 1 broadband services were only available from surveyed ISPs in three of the eight countries included in the study – i.e., Canada, the U.S. and Japan. In this case, Canada's average monthly price of $47.51 is considerably lower than the measured average prices for the U.S. and Japan of roughly $55 and $58, respectively.
In the case of the Level 2 basket, Canada's average monthly price of $56.66 falls just above the average for the group of surveyed foreign jurisdictions of roughly $55.50. Overall Canada ranks fourth in the group, ahead of the U.S., France and Japan. There was no Level 2 service plan offered by any of the surveyed service providers in the U.K.
For the Level 3 basket, Canada's average monthly price of $67.81 falls considerably above the average price for the other surveyed countries of roughly $60. In this case, Canada ranks sixth out of the eight countries in the study, ahead of the U.S. and Australia.
For the Level 4 basket, Canada's average monthly price of $80.63 again falls considerably above the average for the other surveyed countries of roughly $67.50. In this case, Canada ranks seventh out of the eight countries in the study, ahead of only the U.S. Otherwise, the average price in Canada is considerably higher than many of the measured prices in the remaining countries. It is worth noting in this respect that all of the
38
Note that the two other companies surveyed in Japan, KDDI and Yahoo! BB, offer 50 Mbps services, which were included in the Japanese Level 4 Basket category.
countries with lower Level 4 basket prices also have higher average advertised download and upload speeds compared to Canada (see Table 11 above). Figure 7 $- $20 $40 $60 $80 $100 $120
Level 1 Level 2 Level 3 Level 4
$48 $57 $68 $81 $55 $68 $92 $106 $41 $51 $68 $52 $58 $29 $47 $59 $54 $52 $60 $54 $70 $73 $58 $61 $65 $65
2015 International Broadband Service Price Comparison PPP-adjusted CDN$
Canada U.S. U.K. France Germany Italy Australia Japan
Wall Communications Inc. 2015
Canada's broadband service price ranking has remained relatively consistent since the study was first conducted in 2008, including in the case of the Level 4 basket which was added to the study in 2011. The measured prices for the European countries included in the study, including the U.K. and France and, since last year, Germany and Italy, have consistently been lower than those in Canada – in some cases, by a wide margin.
In sum, Canadian broadband Internet service prices compare favourably with the other surveyed countries in the case of the Level 1 (< 3.0 Mbps download
speeds) and Level 2 (4 – 15 Mbps) broadband service baskets. However, Canadian Level 3 (16 – 40 Mbps) and Level 4 (> 40 Mbps) basket prices are higher than the prices measured in the surveyed countries included in the study, with the exception of Japan and the U.S. in the first case and solely the U.S. in the latter case.