Bell has switched up its fibre internet options online after announcing it’s capping speeds to 3Gbps.
New customers looking to access a plan with higher speeds are out of luck. The fastest internet package on Bell’s website at this time is the Gigabit Fibe 3.0.
It provides symmetrical speeds up to 3Gbps and costs $110/month for a limited time. The price includes a $30/month discount for 24 months.
Some of Bell’s internet offerings on February 8, 2024.
This plan overtakes the Gigabit Fibe 8.0, which Bell was offering prior to the capping announcement. According to the December 16, 2023 screenshot shared below, the plan had symmetrical speeds up to 8Gbps for $145/month (including a $10/month discount).
Customers who hold a plan with speeds higher than 3Gbps will continue to have access to their original plan.
“Existing customers with the 8Gbps package will keep what they have. There is no change to their service,” a spokesperson confirmed to MobileSyrup.
Bell CEO Mirko Bibic said the move was implemented after the “targeted actions” of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). In November, the regulator ordered Bell to offer competitors in Ontario and Québec access to its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) network at regulated rates.
The CRTC’s order also includes Telus, but given the company’s FTTH infrastructure is largely in the West, compared to Bell’s larger availability in Ontario and Québec, the order doesn’t impact Telus at the same scale.
The speed cap is Bell’s latest move, disapproving the CRTC’s order. It previously announced it was cutting $1 billion in capital expenditures for 2024 and 2025.
“Because of the CRTC’s targeted actions, we are halting the elevated capex spending program that we’ve been operating under since 2021,” Bibic said Thursday on a call with analysts. “As a result, we are notably slowing the pace of our fibre footprint expansion, and we’re capping fibre speeds at three gigabits per second.”
The call discussed Bell’s financial results for Q4 2023, which included a notice the company was laying off 9 percent of its workforce.
Image credit: Shutterstock
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