Northwestel Inc. is questioning the methodology behind an Internet report that ranks the territory last in the country in terms of average Internet speed.

Last Thursday, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) published a report ranking cities, provinces and territories based on download and upload speeds.

The report was crowd-sourced, meaning it was up to regular users to do the test on CIRA’s website.

Whitehorse ranks 23 out of 25 Canadian cities and the territory has the slowest average Internet speed, between six and seven Mbps, way below the average download speed of 12.39 Mbps for the country.

Between May and December 2015, 395 Yukoners took the test, the majority in Whitehorse.

But the territory’s sole Internet provider is taking issues with the report.

“Unscientific crowd-sourced exercises should obviously be taken with a healthy grain of salt,” Andrew Anderson, Northwestel’s director of communication, told the Star Monday.

“We’ve read through CIRA’s report; we’re not fully understanding their methodology or whether it’s reflective of Internet users.”

The report itself states that the average speeds reported are not reflective of all users in the region.

But today, a spokesperson for CIRA told the Star the non-profit was using internationally-recognized standards.

More importantly, the test reflects what the Internet speed most users have, not what the maximum available speed in the territory is.

“The test is designed to test the real Internet performance of an individual connection,” said CIRA’s spokesperson Ryan Saxby Hill.

“It will test any sort of restraint put on that type of connection, complicated data route, and congestion.”

The low results most likely mean that users are choosing slower Internet packages.

“My opinion would be, you’re seeing more a decision on price than speed necessarily,” said Martin Lehner, director of the local company Orange Technology.

Northwestel’s fastest customer cable package offers up to 125 Mbps in download speed, for $189.95 per month.

That speed would be enough to have more than a dozen people stream high-definition movies at the same time.

In comparison, a smaller package with an eight Mbps download speed – slightly higher than the average speed measured in the CIRA report – will go for $62.95.

“The entire reason behind our test is to start those conversations,” said Saxby Hill about the issue of cost.

There are also other reasons the CIRA speed reports might not reflect what is available.

The test measures real speed, which depends on more than just Northwestel’s infrastructure.

Northwestel’s Anderson insisted the company took part in a speed study initiated by the CRTC and conducted by a third-party firm, the results of which should be published in the next months.

That CRTC study collected speeds in a different way, Saxby Hill noted, and CIRA’s report is a good addition to get a comprehensive picture.

He encouraged people to take the test, as CIRA is still refining its results.

“It is true that there are fewer test samples from some communities,” he said.

“Part of our goal in releasing the data is to motivate additional tests and we’re seeing that is working.”

To take CIRA’s internet speed test, go to performance.cira.ca/.