As the morning light streamed through my home office window, I scanned the latest headlines from Canada’s telecom industry—a sector that rarely lacks for drama. Bell Canada’s newest campaign against wholesale internet regulations isn’t just another corporate complaint; it represents a fundamental tension in how we build digital infrastructure in this country.
Bell, Canada’s largest telecommunications company, has launched an aggressive public campaign urging the federal government and the CRTC to reverse a policy decision that would force the company to provide wholesale access to its fibre-to-the-home network. The campaign, which kicked off this week, targets what Bell describes as a “devastating” regulatory framework that would allegedly undermine its ability to invest in critical digital infrastructure.
“We’re looking at a potential $8 billion reduction in network investments over the next five years if this wholesale regime stands,” said Mirko Bibic, BCE President and CEO, during a media call yesterday. “That’s not just a Bell problem—that’s a Canadian competitiveness problem.”
Let’s take a step back and understand what’s actually happening here. Last November, the CRTC ruled that large telecommunications companies like Bell must provide wholesale access to their fibre-to-the-home networks to smaller internet service providers (ISPs). The decision was meant to enhance competition in the high-speed internet market, potentially leading to more choices and better pricing for consumers.
The ruling reversed a previous policy stance that had exempted these next-generation fibre networks from mandatory wholesale access requirements. Under that earlier framework, companies like Bell had exclusive use of the fibre networks they built, arguing this exclusivity was necessary to justify the massive capital expenditures required for deployment.
Bell’s campaign features full-page newspaper advertisements, digital media placements, and a dedicated website encouraging Canadians to contact their elected officials. The imagery is stark: construction workers sitting idle, equipment gathering dust, and rural communities portrayed as being left behind digitally.
But is Bell’s doomsday scenario accurate? Many industry observers aren’t convinced.
“This is classic incumbent behavior,” says Laura Tribe, Executive Director at OpenMedia, a consumer advocacy organization. “When faced with increased competition, Canada’s telecom giants have historically predicted investment collapse, job losses, and network deterioration. Those predictions have rarely materialized.”
Data from the CRTC’s own Communications Monitoring Report shows that despite previous regulatory interventions, capital expenditures by major telecoms have generally remained stable or increased over time. Between 2016 and 2021, despite several pro-competition regulatory decisions, Bell invested over $26 billion in its networks.
The smaller ISPs that would benefit from the wholesale access rules paint an entirely different picture. They argue that without access to these fibre networks, they’re effectively locked out of offering the highest-speed services to consumers, creating a service gap that widens as copper-based technologies become increasingly obsolete.
“What we’re really talking about is whether Canadians deserve competitive choices for essential services,” explains Matt Stein, CEO of Distributel, an independent internet provider. “Bell built much of that network leveraging public rights-of-way, utility poles, and spectrum—shared resources that belong to all Canadians.”
The economic stakes extend far beyond the telecom industry itself. In conversations with technology startups across Canada, I’ve consistently heard that affordable, high-quality internet access remains a fundamental concern, particularly for companies developing data-intensive applications or services.
“We’re building AI solutions that require massive data processing capabilities,” Sarah Javed, founder of Toronto-based machine learning startup Gradient, told me recently. “Our engineers and clients both need robust, affordable connectivity. If we’re paying premium rates because of limited competition, that directly impacts our ability to scale and compete globally.”
The policy debate also strikes at the heart of Canada’s rural-urban digital divide. While Bell claims the wholesale rules will reduce rural investment, others argue that major telecoms have already been slow to deploy fibre in less densely populated areas without additional incentives or requirements.
Statistics Canada data shows that as of 2022, only 63% of rural households had access to 50/
