There's really no simple answer to the elusive question "Who is the best cell phone provider", George. There are too many variables involved.
If you think about it, here are just a few of the factors that you have to look at:
- selection of handsets
- coverage areas
- included local minutes
- included long distance minutes
- phone features (caller ID, call waiting, voicemail, enhanced voicemail, etc.)
- text messaging plan costs
- data ("web browsing") plan costs
- perks such as "My 5", where you cite 5 phone numbers in Canada where you get preferred/unlimited rates for calling
- customer service quality
- bundle discounts with cable/landline/television services
- special pricing for military members
I could go on, but it's a super competitive market out there in the wireless world right now, and it's only going to get worse with new companies coming online. What one really needs to do is to create a list of needs/wants/don't needs, and approach one of the retailers who represent multiple service providers, eg. Costco and any of the umpteen cell stores in your local shopping mall. Take lots of notes.
For example, my wife and I were on a Rogers Family Plan, which ran us approx $60/month for both phones, 250 local minutes per month, and the basic text messaging plan. We barely ran up 10 minutes of calling each per month. We figured out we could migrate to Pay-As-You-Go, buy a $100 phone card each ($100 cards don't expire at the end of the month, they're good for a year), and get all sorts of features like call display and voicemail for free, pay $0.39/minute daytime and $0.01/minute eves and weekends (and all of our calling is eves and weekends), and come out hundreds of dollars to the good just by dumping the post-paid plan. YMMV depending on your needs, as there are new companies coming out very shortly, and the existing companies are making some very attractive plans to lock you in for terms like 3 years before the new companies come online.
The list you posted from Wikipedia becomes a lot shorter when you know that the big wireless companies (Bell, Rogers, Telus) all offer a "bargain brand" of service (Virgin/Solo, Fido, and Koodo/Mike, respectively). PC Mobile is independent, but uses the Bell towers.
Short answer - you just have to shop around. The cellular companies are just throwing too many carrots out there to point you in one direction without knowing a lot more about your cellular needs. And nope, I don't work for any of the companies, I just spent a lot of time shopping around after being puzzled about all the offerings out there.