A recent household upload index has shown that Canada ranks only as a mere slow-moving 54th among the nations as far as Internet upload speeds is concerned. The country was listed just below Kenya and just above Mexico.

But the report from Ookla, a company that crowdsources data on Internet connections, surprising didn't award the top slot to any member nation of the G8, APEC, EU or OECD.

The top spot was given to Hong Kong, the world's high-tech mecca with upload speeds recorded at a whopping 59.9 mbps.

The next top nine countries were

  • Singapore, 46.8 mbps
  • South Korea, 43.3 mbps
  • Macau, 34.7 mbps
  • Lithuania, 33.4 mbps
  • Andorra, 33.3 mbps
  • Japan, 28.9 mbps
  • Republic of Moldova, 28. 7 mbps
  • Romania, 28.6 mbps
  • Iceland, 26.5 mbps

The U.S. was no match even to Hong Kong, with the former notches away at 41st place at a pathetic 6.6 Mbps upload speed.

A map by tech blogger Peter Nowak broke up Canada to show a much detailed upload speeds by province. It was found that Ontario's upload speeds were the same as with Bangladesh at 4.7 mbps.

Listed as the turtle pacer for lowest upload speeds among Canadian provinces was Nunavut at 0.9 Mbps, same level as Bolivia.

"Poor upload speeds essentially mean that business simply isn't happening on the internet," Mr Nowak wrote.

On Wednesday, the Canadian national government pledged to allot $305 million federal budget to expand and improve Internet access in the country's rural areas.

About 280,000 households and businesses in areas of Canada are projected to benefit from the project over the next five years.

Nordicity, a telecom consulting firm, however said it will take more than $305 million to connect and expand the telecoms infrastructure of Nunavut, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories, more like between $623 million to $2.2 billion. It said national government has at least four options to achieve its goal, go from the expensive full network upgrade or resort to the cheapest which is just to upgrade existing infrastructure.

"Without significant improvements to broadband connectivity levels in the North, the three Territories would likely see reduced economic growth, lower territorial tax base and correspondingly, stagnant or lower household income and fewer jobs," the report said.

"As development of the North is a key to overall Canadian economy, on a global basis, Canada's ability to attract new capital into critical resource and transportation projects would be lessened."