Summary

  • From 10 March 2027, providers covered by the Internet Code must disclose typical speeds and stand behind those commitments, with a limited peak-hour speed allowance.
  • Testing ends at a Canadian Internet exchange point, while a separate process will develop machine-readable plan data. Neither is a guarantee for every application.

A broadband provider can choose a modest speed to promise. What it will find harder to choose is whether that promise counts. In its 10 September decision, CRTC turns “typical” download and upload speeds into pre-sale commitments that covered providers must be able to defend. The main changes take effect on 10 March 2027, giving marketing claims a more explicit connection to network performance and dispute evidence.

This is not an order to sell every connection at its maximum technical rate. Providers retain discretion over the typical speeds they offer and the geographical granularity of those offers. Nor does “typical” mean a network-wide average that can conceal a weak connection. For compliance purposes, the decision requires delivery of the full committed typical speed outside peak hours and at least 95% of it during the local weekday peak, from 7pm to 11pm.

The denominator matters. This is 95% of the promised speed, not permission to fall short for 5% of the time. CRTC explicitly rejected a time-availability approach that could leave room for severe slowdowns. The rule still does not specify an automatic payment for each disappointing test: in a dispute, the provider must demonstrate delivery, while CCTS can consider the materiality and regularity of slowdowns when assessing compensation.

A boundary for the promise

The evidential route is more specific than opening any speed-test website. The prescribed sample-based method measures from a probe at the customer's modem to an off-network server connected to an Internet exchange point in a Canadian Tier 1 city. Providers may choose the probe, but must publish their methodology. A domestic exchange-point endpoint brings traffic beyond the provider's own network without making an arbitrary overseas application the measure of its obligation.

That distinction limits what the policy proves. A poor result on a household device is not, by itself, a finding that the regulated test has failed. Equally, a provider cannot treat its chosen testing method as private. The consumer guide directs customers first to their provider and then, where appropriate, to CCTS if an issue remains unresolved. The rule creates an accountability process; it does not announce any finding against a particular operator.

Contract evidence supplies the other half. Covered providers with online portals must keep contracts and critical information summaries available there for current and future customers from March 2027. The existing Internet Code already requires evidence of pre-sale terms and defines the relevant retail fixed-Internet scope. The new decision applies to providers subject to that Code—close to 90% of retail fixed-Internet subscribers, by CRTC's estimate—not to every small reseller or mobile plan.

Clearer numbers, flexible presentation

The official announcement couples more realistic speed information with the price customers will pay after promotions. That regular price must be at least as prominent as the discounted price; necessary additional equipment rental charges must also be prominent. These are disclosure obligations, not price controls. Providers must disclose prescribed latency ranges too, but are not required to adopt a uniform advertising label.

Machine-readable comparison is on a different timetable. CRTC wants structured plan data, yet has not imposed the FCC's file specification. CISC must recommend a Canadian structure and an implementation timeline in a report due by 10 September 2027. Treating that report date—or March's main implementation date—as a universal live-data deadline would jump ahead of the decision.

The immediate business task is therefore to reconcile what sales teams promise, what contracts preserve and what measurement can substantiate. A fresh advertising box cannot do that work on its own.