Explainer: How Telus and Bell became each others wholesalers

Bell and Telus, two of the country's largest telecom companies, are increasingly using wholesale access to compete outside the geographic territories where they traditionally operated their own fixed networks.

The result is a market in which Bell can sell internet services using another incumbent's fibre network in parts of Western Canada, while Telus can do the same using Bell's network in Ontario and Quebec.

They are not literally wholesale customers of themselves. They are, in effect, wholesale customers of each other.

The old model

Wholesale access has been part of Canadian telecommunications regulation for decades.

Aggregated wholesale high-speed access (HSA) historically allowed competitors to connect their networks at a limited number of points of interconnection and use the incumbent's network to reach customers. 

The basic principle is straightforward. A company that owns a telecommunications network can be required to provide another provider with access to that network at regulated rates. The model helped companies such as independent internet service providers compete with the large telephone and cable companies.

Dating back to the 1990s, telecommunications companies have been required to share physical assets like utility poles and trenches.

By the mid-2010s, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the government entity responsible for regulating the industry, was looking for a model that would encourage competitors to invest more in their own networks.

In 2015, the regulator decided to phase out aggregated HSA in favour of disaggregated HSA. Under that model, outlined in CRTC Telecom Regulatory Policy 2015-326, competitors would obtain access to the last-mile network but would need to provide or lease more of the transport infrastructure required to carry traffic back to their own networks.

The transition became particularly complicated as Canadian carriers replaced copper networks with fibre.

The CRTC had included fibre-to-the-premises facilities within its wholesale framework. Bell and other incumbents therefore faced obligations to provide competitors with access to parts of their fibre networks.

In 2016, the CRTC established the configuration for disaggregated wholesale HSA in Ontario and Quebec. But the disaggregated model did not develop as originally expected. In subsequent proceedings, the CRTC acknowledged that implementation had encountered difficulties. Competitors faced technical and commercial barriers in accessing fibre facilities.

By 2023, the regulator was reviewing the wholesale framework again.

The reset

The turning point came in November 2023.

The CRTC ordered Bell and Telus to provide temporary aggregated wholesale access over their fibre-to-the-premises networks in Ontario and Quebec. The service was to be available by May 2024. The decision restored a form of wholesale access that had been targeted for phase-out almost a decade earlier.

It also opened the door to something less common in Canadian telecom regulation: a large incumbent could use another incumbent's wholesale network when operating outside its traditional territory.

The temporary framework did not initially restrict which companies could use the service. Telus was the first of the two companies to demonstrate the model at scale. The company has long operated fixed networks in Western Canada, particularly Alberta and British Columbia, while also maintaining an incumbent position in parts of Quebec.

Ontario and much of Quebec, however, sit outside its traditional wireline footprint.

Under the temporary wholesale regime, Telus entered Ontario and Quebec using wholesale access to Bell's fibre network.

Telus has described the arrangement as a way to compete in Eastern Canada without duplicating the physical access network another carrier has already built.

The company began offering internet services in Ontario and Quebec through the wholesale framework in May 2024.

Bell's position is effectively the reverse. The company's traditional fixed-line footprint covers Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic Canada and Manitoba, while its operations do not make it the incumbent wireline provider across Alberta and British Columbia.

The expanded wholesale framework therefore created an opportunity for Bell to compete in those western markets by accessing Telus' fibre network.

The CRTC's 2026 record states that Bell had announced plans to offer retail internet services in Alberta and British Columbia using aggregated wholesale "Fibre to the Premises" (FTTP) access.

The regulatory boundary

In August 2024, the CRTC established a permanent framework requiring Bell, Telus and other incumbent local exchange carriers to provide aggregated wholesale access to their fibre networks. The deadline for the required access was 13 February 2025.

At the same time, the CRTC introduced an important restriction. An incumbent could not use mandated wholesale access inside its own traditional serving territory.

That means Bell cannot simply abandon its own Ontario fibre network and use another incumbent's wholesale network to serve Bell customers in an area where Bell is already the incumbent.

The rule is designed to prevent an incumbent from using wholesale access to avoid investing in its own network where it already has one, while allowing it to enter markets where it does not have the same infrastructure position.

Looking forward, the CRTC has introduced a head-start period for new fibre builds. Fibre deployed by Bell, Telus and SaskTel after the August 2024 policy is generally protected from wholesale access for five years, subject to the framework's specific rules.