How we test

One list of 214 Canadian feeds, one method, applied to every service in the index.

Most comparison sites score IPTV services on a channel count the provider supplied. That number is unverifiable and, in this market, usually inflated by counting the same feed in four resolutions. This site does not use it. It uses one list of Canadian feeds and asks a single question of each service: does this play.

The list

There are 214 entries: the national networks, the thirteen provincial and territorial broadcasts, the regional sports feeds, the French-language line-up, and the specialty channels a Canadian household is most likely to miss after cutting cable. It was assembled from what people actually cancel and then complain about, and it is revised once a year rather than monthly, so the matrix stays comparable across quarters.

The check

Each service is bought at full retail on a normal consumer plan. Every feed on the list is opened in turn and watched for thirty seconds. If it plays, it is carried. If it appears in the guide but does not play, it is not carried, regardless of what the listing says. Nothing is accepted from a provider's own channel page.

Two connections are used: fibre in Quebec and cable in Alberta. Every service is checked once in the afternoon and once after nine in the evening, because a line-up that holds at four o'clock and falls apart at ten is not a line-up you can buy.

Full, partial, none

Full means every feed in that group played on both connections, at both times.
Partial means the group is present but incomplete: a national feed without its regionals, or Montreal French without the rest.
None means nothing in the group played.

Partial fails the filter. A household that needs a specific regional sports feed is not served by regional sports Ontario, and a matrix that pretends otherwise is not worth reading.

Independence

Some outbound links earn a commission. That pays for the subscriptions and nothing else; it has never moved a mark. The affiliate disclosure sets out the arrangement in full.

Who keeps it

Renee Charbonneau, Editor. Renee cut cable in Montreal in 2019 and has been documenting what replaces it ever since. She keeps a channel list of everything a Canadian household actually loses when the cable box goes back, and checks each service against that list on a fibre line in Quebec and a cable line in Alberta.

Corrections

If a feed is marked wrongly, say so and it will be re-checked before anything else in the queue. hello@findiptvcanada.com, or the contact page.