By Ahmad Hathout
Bell has “drastically degraded” wholesale last-mile fibre service to Telus in Ontario and Quebec, a move that increased its market power and harmed customers of the third-party service provider, the Vancouver-based telco alleges in a heavily-redacted application to the CRTC dated Tuesday.
Telus claims in the unjust discrimination and undue preference complaint that the issue started on the evening of January 14, 2026. “With only a few hours’ notice, Bell drastically degraded the mandated wholesale FTTP service … that it provides to TELUS,” it said in the complaint, which asks the CRTC to act urgently. The CRTC on Wednesday asked Bell in a letter to file its response to the complaint by this Friday.
Telus complained to the CRTC, which sent a warning letter, after Bell allegedly started emailing threats in December to degrade the service. “The sudden degradation of the Service, as well as Bell’s refusal to commit to any specific remedial action in response to the Commission’s stated expectation that Bell ‘take every necessary step to resolve [the issue TELUS is facing] immediately,’ shows that Bell is blatantly disregarding the Commission’s authority and explicit directions,” Telus claims in the complaint.
The reason for the “degradation” is redacted in the complaint, and a Bell spokesperson simply told us, “We continue to fulfill all customer orders and provide all required customer support.”
Telus, which said it could have “worked to prevent the resulting consumer harm” if it had “reasonable advance notice” of this alleged move, is asking the CRTC to order the restoration of service, force Bell not to change the service without prior consent or an order of the commission, and to impose a sufficient deterrent in the form of an administrative monetary penalty for alleged breaches of the Telecommunications Act and its own tariff.
“The relief sought by TELUS will enable it to continue to expand into Ontario and Quebec, improving competition to the benefit of residents in those provinces, in a manner directly consistent with the objectives of the framework,” it said in the complaint.
Telus alleges this issue is just one in a “pattern of behaviour designed to reduce TELUS’ competitiveness and undermine the Commission’s framework.”
Telus stands alone among the three largest telecoms – and lots of smaller telecoms – in supporting the CRTC’s policy of allowing the big fish to use the mandated wholesale internet framework. The concern for Rogers and Bell is largely about what this policy means for network investment; for the smaller competitors, it’s about these large corporations taking market share in their own backyards.
Despite Bell using Telus’s fibre network to launch its own internet services in western Canada, Telus alleges the large telco is concerned about competition on its own turf.
“Bell’s motivation for degrading the Service for TELUS is clear: Bell wishes to reduce TELUS’ effectiveness as a competitor in Bell’s incumbent wireline serving territories,” the telco claims in the complaint. “Bell has advocated for TELUS’ exclusion from access to mandated HSA in several regulatory proceedings, including in the Commission’s proceedings that led to its confirmation of the temporary HSA framework, its expansion of the mandated HSA framework on a permanent basis, and its confirmation of the mandated HSA framework.”
The CRTC’s wholesale internet framework is being challenged in court.
Before this complaint, Bell and Telus weren’t exactly on the best of terms. Last year, Telus filed an undue preference complaint claiming Bell is deliberately obstructing its ability to introduce its broadcasting services over the larger telco’s last-mile fibre facilities in eastern Canada. A month later, Bell accused Telus of unfairly treating some of its newly branded TV services in light of Telus signing a distribution deal for Rogers’s competing channels. That same month, Bell filed an application in the Ontario Superior Court accusing Telus of training and using door-to-door salespeople to pitch an unlicensed IPTV application to get customers to switch to Telus internet services. Telus claimed it dealt with these “rogue” agents.
Telus has publicly stated numerous times that a key part of its strategy to gain market share in eastern Canada is to package and delivery services, including premium television content, over internet it can wholesale from competing telecoms where it doesn’t have infrastructure.
