March 2, 2026 Bell Canada and Telus Corp. have withdrawn competing complaints before the CRTC over fibre network access, ending a public dispute in the first year of Canada’s regulator-imposed wholesale framework. The detente clears the way for Bell to expand into Telus’s Western Canadian fibre network.
On Monday, both companies asked to withdraw their applications, and the CRTC closed the cases Friday. Bell had alleged Telus was restricting access to top internet speeds and lacked workable ordering systems, with CEO Mirko Bibic telling analysts the situation was “untenable,” citing “weeks long” service windows to launch new customers. Telus had previously accused Bell of unlawfully “drastically degraded” its ability to sign up new customers.
The wholesale regime requires Bell and Telus – and other incumbents – to provide competitors, including each other, access to their fibre networks at regulated rates. The policy is intended to increase retail competition by allowing more providers to offer service over existing infrastructure.
The dispute highlighted ongoing operational friction. Smaller providers, including TekSavvy and Every-Day Computers Inc., filed interventions saying they faced similar access challenges. The CRTC said in a statement that processes tied to wholesale high-speed provisioning are expected to apply equally to all wholesale customers. Spokesperson Mirabella Salem added that “tens of thousands of households have already subscribed to internet services enabled by the access.”
Despite that uptake, independent wholesale-based operators represented 4.2 per cent of customers in 2024, roughly half their 2020 share, according to a recent CRTC market report. Interim wholesale rates remain in place, with permanent rates still pending. TekSavvy’s head of regulatory affairs, Andy Kaplan-Myrth, said the prolonged interim pricing leaves smaller providers in a difficult position, particularly where incumbents can price retail services below mandated wholesale access rates.
Technical implementation has also been left largely to the companies, creating integration and back-end system challenges that have triggered repeated regulatory filings, independent executives say.
Capital expenditures across the sector have declined since 2022, according to the CRTC report. At the same time, major incumbents have been managing significant debt from past infrastructure spending and acquisitions, while population growth has slowed.
