Who resells whom

Bell is the incumbent phone company in the east. The CRTC’s 2024-180 policy names Bell Canada, Bell Aliant and Bell MTS among the phone companies that must open their fibre to competitors. In southern Alberta, though, Bell isn’t listed as a wireline network owner in any of the communities we cover. Here it has announced a phased launch as a customer of TELUS, reselling TELUS fibre.

Riding on TELUS. In October 2025 Bell said it would sell home internet in Alberta and BC over TELUS fibre, at first only to Bell mobile customers, using the CRTC’s wholesale fibre rules (how they work); MobileSyrup notes Bell had campaigned against those rules. The CRTC recorded the plan in Telecom Order 2026-77. In February 2026 Bell and TELUS settled a dispute over TELUS’s ordering systems, and Bell said it would launch fully in BC and Alberta “as soon as possible”.

In the CRTC proceedings. In 2024-180 the CRTC recorded that Bell intended to rely more on wholesale access in its own territory where it had not yet built fibre. When Cogeco, Eastlink, CNOC, Rogers and TekSavvy asked the CRTC to change 2024-180, Bell was among the parties that agreed the largest incumbents can’t be treated as new entrants when they use wholesale outside their home turf. The CRTC declined to change the decision.

Distributel. Bell bought the independent provider Distributel in 2022. The announcement said Distributel would keep operating independently; the CCTS now counts it in the Bell group.

Complaints. The CCTS accepted 3,966 complaints about Bell in 2024-25, 16.8% of the total, all services included. The report lists 33 cases of major non-compliance with its process across all providers; Bell Canada appears in six (resolutions it had agreed to and didn’t implement), and Bell Aliant is also listed. The CCTS says all 33 were resolved after it engaged with the providers.

In our view, the new entrant on TELUS’s fibre that the CRTC itself pointed to is another of the big three: more choice on paper, not a new wire.

TELUS is what Alberta Government Telephones became: the province privatised AGT in 1990, selling it to a newly formed TELUS. It is the incumbent phone company in every community we cover; aggregator data built from CRTC network-owner filings lists TELUS DSL in each and TELUS fibre in several (see Medicine Hat). It picked Taber for a fibre pilot in 2015.

Wholesale. Under Telecom Regulatory Policy 2024-180 TELUS is one of the three phone companies required to open their fibre to competitors (what that means). In that proceeding it commissioned an expert report arguing retail competition was already healthy, and argued the largest carriers should keep using wholesale access outside their home territories. It does: Telecom Order 2026-77 notes TELUS sells internet over Bell’s fibre in Ontario and Quebec.

Rates. 2026-77 set the final aggregated fibre rate on TELUS’s network in Alberta and BC at $77.21 a month per connection (up to 1.5 Gbps), plus $42.12 per 100 Mbps of capacity. For comparable speeds it sets $57.86 on TELUS’s network in Quebec and $68.26 on Bell’s in Ontario and Quebec. In our view, the highest of the three makes it harder for an Alberta reseller to undercut TELUS’s retail plans.

Letting others in. According to Cartt, TELUS complained in January 2026 that Bell’s system updates had degraded its access to Bell’s wholesale fibre in Ontario and Quebec, and on 5 February the CRTC granted TELUS interim relief that forced Bell to roll those updates back. Bell accused TELUS of manual ordering systems that made Bell’s launch on TELUS fibre “impossible” to scale. Both withdrew their complaints that February; the CRTC voided that interim order and said provisioning processes “will apply to all wholesale customers equally”.

Complaints. The CCTS accepted 4,904 complaints about TELUS in 2024-25, 20.7% of the total and up 77.9% on the year before, the largest rise of the top three brands (the CCTS says Rogers/Shaw and Bell rose roughly in line with the 17% overall increase). The counts cover all services, wireless included, and big brands have more customers. The report lists 33 cases of major non-compliance with its process across all providers; TELUS appears in five (two agreed resolutions not implemented, three investigation findings). The CCTS says all 33 were resolved after it engaged with the providers.

Rogers (formerly Shaw) is the cable network owner listed in every community we cover, according to aggregator data built from CRTC network-owner filings (for example Medicine Hat), because it bought Shaw: Rogers completed the acquisition on 3 April 2023. Under a 2022 agreement listed on the same page, Shaw’s Freedom Mobile went to Quebecor. Shaw’s coax and fibre here now belong to Rogers; coverage maps still show both names.

Wholesale role. Independent providers selling cable internet here use Rogers’s network through TPIA, the CRTC’s mandated wholesale cable service (how that works). Under 2024-180 Rogers must keep offering it at its top cable speeds, but cable companies were not required to open their fibre: the CRTC found their fibre reached just 5% of all households.

In the CRTC proceedings. Rogers was one of the three applicants that asked the CRTC to review and change 2024-180. It wanted all incumbents, or at least Bell, Rogers and TELUS, barred from wholesale access, and the head-start rule extended to cable upgrades or a 1.5 Gbps cap on wholesale speeds. The CRTC found Rogers had not shown substantial doubt about the decision and left it as it was.

Complaints. The CCTS reports Rogers and Shaw together: 6,485 complaints in 2024-25, 27.4% of the total and the most of any brand group, all services, wireless included. The report lists 33 cases of major non-compliance with its process across all providers; Rogers/Shaw appears in nine of them (seven agreed resolutions not implemented, two investigation findings). The CCTS says all 33 were resolved after it engaged with the providers.

In our view, the takeover left southern Alberta with one fewer large, independent owner of last-mile wire, and brought a cable company that argued for capped wholesale speeds. In a two-wire town, the cable network is half the physical choice.

Galaxy Broadband sells connectivity mainly to businesses, including satellite, private LTE/5G and backup links. Its Brooks page says Calian Group has acquired it and that it has offices in Mississauga and Edmonton.

Riding on BrooksNET. Galaxy says it is “the first company to provide symmetrical fibre optic internet for businesses on BrooksNET”, with download and upload speeds up to 2000 Mbps. It also sells to multi-unit buildings on the network. BrooksNET is the city-owned, open-access network, so Galaxy is a tenant on municipal fibre. It doesn’t rent from TELUS or Rogers there.

In our view, this is what reselling should look like: the retail provider competes on service and price, and the fibre underneath is public infrastructure rather than an incumbent’s asset. The test is whether more than one provider ends up selling on BrooksNET. Open access only means something if others actually use it.

TekSavvy is based in Chatham, Ontario, and has sold cable internet in Alberta since 2019. Its Alberta page offers cable, DSL and fibre “where service technology permits” and lists Lethbridge and Medicine Hat among the cities it serves. It talks about “wholesale fibre” areas, but doesn’t name whose wires it uses.

Whose lines. It doesn’t own last-mile wire in southern Alberta. By our reading of the CRTC’s wholesale regime, its cable service here runs on Rogers’s network and its DSL and fibre on TELUS’s.

In the CRTC proceedings. TekSavvy was one of the three applicants that asked the CRTC to change 2024-180, from the opposite side to Rogers. It wanted the largest incumbents kept out of wholesale access outside their home territories, the head-start rule lifted for new phone-company fibre in-territory, and a rethink of the open-ended exemption that spares cable companies from opening their fibre. The CRTC left the decision unchanged.

Complaints. TekSavvy is not among the CCTS’s top brands by volume. The 2024-25 annual report lists 33 cases of major non-compliance with the CCTS process across all providers; TekSavvy is listed once, among providers that didn’t implement a resolution they had agreed to. For scale, Rogers/Shaw appears in nine, Bell Canada in six and TELUS in five. The CCTS says all 33 were resolved after it engaged with the providers.

In our view, TekSavvy is a different company on the same wire: it can’t be faster or more reliable than the line it rents.

VMedia started as an independent. In 2022 Quebecor, the owner of Videotron and Freedom Mobile, bought it. Neither company announced the deal; it surfaced in a CRTC filing. VMedia continues as its own brand.

What it sells here. VMedia advertises cable internet in Medicine Hat and DSL, cable and fibre-to-the-node plans around Redcliff. It owns no wires here. Cable resale in southern Alberta runs on Rogers’s network and DSL resale on TELUS’s. That’s our reading of the CRTC regime; VMedia’s pages don’t name the network owner.

Complaints. The CCTS’s 2024-25 report names VMedia among the brands that entered its Top 25 list for the first time because of a significant year-over-year increase in accepted complaints.

In our view, VMedia is no longer an independent in the sense most people mean. It’s one way Quebecor, a large national player, sells wireline service in the West without building any. That’s not a criticism of the service. It’s worth knowing who you’re actually buying from.

BrooksNET is the City of Brooks’s fibre network. According to the 2021 project update, the city invested $5.3 million and owns the backbone. Community Network Partners invested $15.7 million to connect homes and businesses to it. MobileSyrup put the total at $21 million.

Open access. BrooksNET doesn’t sell retail service itself. Arcadis, which designed and managed the project, describes it as municipally owned and open access, so that “multiple internet providers” can offer services on it. It also describes 109.3 km of fibre able to serve over 5,000 homes and businesses. The 2021 update named O-NET, the community network operator from Olds, as the first retail provider. Galaxy Broadband now markets fibre service on the network.

Whose lines. These are its own lines. In Brooks, this is the one wired network that belongs to neither TELUS nor Rogers.

In our view, BrooksNET is the model this site keeps coming back to. The public owns the passive fibre, and providers compete on top of it. A town ends up with a third physical network instead of a tenth brand on the same two. Whether it pays off over time is a fair question, and one we’ll update as public information comes in.

EIDNet is run by the Eastern Irrigation District, based in Brooks. In its November 2019 newsletter it said it had been providing internet in the area for more than 24 years. It counted more than 1,800 farms, ranches, businesses and individuals as customers, in community hubs and outlying rural areas.

Its own network. EIDNet serves customers from its own towers, 18 of them according to the newsletter. Aggregator data built from CRTC filings lists it as a fixed-wireless network owner in Brooks. It doesn’t rent anyone’s last-mile wires.

Fibre backhaul. The 2019 newsletter said the radios linking EIDNet’s towers had a throughput limit. It was investigating replacing them with fibre on 14 of its 18 towers, and its Brooks tower was already on fibre. We haven’t found a public update on how far that got.

In our view, EIDNet is what a local network looks like when it’s owned by the people it serves: small, rural, and building its own backbone rather than waiting for an incumbent. It’s the kind of operator a regional exchange would be for.

Xplore is a privately held, rural-focused provider with more than 300,000 subscribers across Canada. Its lawyers describe it as Canada’s largest rural broadband service provider. CRTC network-owner filings list it as the owner of its own fixed-wireless network, and it also sells satellite service. In southern Alberta it doesn’t rent the incumbents’ wires.

Where it shows up. Aggregator data built from CRTC network-owner filings lists Xplore fixed wireless and satellite across Medicine Hat and every other community we cover. A Universal Broadband Fund announcement reported by the Taber Times in 2024 listed Taber, Barnwell, Grassy Lake, Milk River, Warner and other nearby communities among the places Xplore will invest.

Finances. In 2024 Xplore went through a court-approved restructuring under the Canada Business Corporations Act (Xplore Inc. (Re), 2024 ONSC 5250). According to Gowling WLG, it cut secured debt from about $1.7 billion to about $330 million and opened access to new debt and equity financing.

In our view, Xplore is a real second or third network where the wires don’t reach, and a reasonable backup where they do. Fixed wireless shares capacity at each tower, so it’s not a substitute for fibre where fibre is on offer. The restructuring is worth knowing about if you’re signing a long contract.