Bell, Telus named leaders in 5G coverage, Rogers in reliability: Opensignal

The ‘big three’ Canadian telecom companies, Bell, Rogers, and Telus, were recently recognized in Opensignal’s 2026 Global 5G awards.

For context, these awards recognize operators worldwide that deliver “the best real-world 5G experiences.” The company also notes that the awards are based on billions of real-world user experiences across categories like Download Speed, Video, Games, Voice App, Reliability, Coverage Experience, and Time on 5G—which is new for 2026.

Canadian telecom companies received praise in only two categories: 5G Coverage and 5G Reliability.

Starting with 5G coverage, Telus and Bell were both named 5G Global Leaders for 2026 in the category, with both scoring 6.7 points out of 10. The global winner was the USA’s T-Mobile, which scored 8.4 out of 10.

Shifting to 5G Reliability, both Telus and Rogers were named 5G Global Leaders for 2026. Telus ranked as the fourth-highest global 5G provider, with a score of 975.3 out of 1000, while Rogers was close behind at 970.7 out of 1000. Japan’s Au and SoftBank were the Global Winners for 2026, scoring 981.4 and 980.5 out of a possible 1000 points.

To add some context for 5G Coverage, Opensignal tracks this data by assessing the geographical reach of 5G networks within a market, taking population density into account, and scoring it on a 10-point scale.

Similarly, for 5G Reliability, the company measures how consistently users can complete everyday tasks while connected to 5G. It doesn’t cover the chance of initially connecting, but rather whether the network can maintain sufficient quality while connected. This is then scored on a points system out of 1000.

Source: Opensignal