Expect fewer mobile discounts from Bell and Telus next year

Bell and Telus execs recently spoke separately at the Desjardins Toronto conference and shared the outlooks both companies have on the existing telecom market and where it’s going.

Both companies sent their chief financial officers, who spoke at length regarding many aspects of the telecom ecosystem, but mostly seemed to focus on areas for growth. This conference seemed very similar to an earnings call, but without sharing any concrete numbers.

To kick it off, Telus CFO Doug French shared that the company has seen a cooling on deals offered for wireless services, but not as much for home internet. He also mentions that rates have gone down as much as 70 per cent on mobile plans in Canada over the past few years.

However, as we know from a prior report, that number is manipulated since it’s usually focused on the average cost per gigabyte, not how much the average person is paying. Moreover, a recent Statistics Canada report notes that wireless prices actually increased in October 2025. Notably, this comes after the organization changed how it tracks wireless pricing to better reflect what consumers actually pay last year.

Carriers seek to increase ARPU

Moving on from that, French and the moderator talk about Telus’ average revenue per user (ARPU) and how Telus’ ARPU for its mobile sector has been in a negative growth area for the last little bit. Don’t confuse this with negative ARPU — the telecom is still raking it in with ARPU hovering around the $58 mark over the past three years, but it is down slightly compared to 2024 and 2023.

Below, I’ve outlined how much Telus has made on average from its mobile subscribers since the start of 2023. The first number is the ARPU, and the second is the total revenue the company made from its wireless division that quarter:

• Q3 2025 – $57.21 – mobile network rev $1.755 billion.
• Q2 2025 – $56.58 – mobile network rev $1.723 billion.
• Q1 2025 – $57.13- mobile network rev $1.732 billion.
• Q4 2024 –  $58.05- mobile network rev $1.758 billion.
• Q3 2024 – $58.85- mobile network rev $1.766 billion.
• Q2 2024 – $58.49 – mobile network rev $1.734 billion.
• Q1 2024 – $59.31 – mobile network rev $1.746 billion.
• Q4 2023 – $58.50 – mobile network rev $1.759 billion.
• Q3 2023 – $59.19 – mobile network rev $1.753 billion.
• Q2 2023 – $58.80 – mobile network rev $1.718 billion.
• Q1 2023 – $58.61 – mobile network rev $1.697 billion.

Since we’re close to Black Friday, French also had a chuckle about prices going up after the shopping event, which should help increase ARPU. In Bell’s talk, it seemed like the company has also picked up on the trend of trying to raise ARPU as well, so it seems like Canadians are going to start seeing higher wireless plan prices as the Big Three try to get their ARPU over $60. Bell said it hopes to raise its average ARPU by the end of 2026. (Bell’s ARPU chart looks much like Telus’ above, sticking around $57-$58 in the last few quarters.)

This is an interesting dynamic since the Big Three have had to be more competitive as Freedom is being pushed to become the fourth national carrier in Canada. The CFOs from both companies seem to agree that things are going back towards normal in the telecom world, which for them means high prices and no deals.

That said, the CRTC mandated that Freedom must keep its prices 20 per cent more affordable than the incumbent carriers in Ontario, B.C, and Alberta for ten years. That was in early 2023, so we’re over two years into that stint, which means Freedom will likely remain competitive for a lot longer. Unless it also starts to raise prices, I think Bell and Telus might be jumping the gun by thinking competition is settling down.

A focus on home internet deals

French says that Telus will be quieter out of the gate next year with fewer deals on mobile plans and devices. Bell’s talk suggests the same, so only time will tell how strictly they hold to that strategy. However, he expects there to be lots of offers on home internet. This home internet play adds up with Bell’s talk, which also focused a lot on building out fibre to the home and gaining subscribers that way.

Telus is continuing plans to expand its fibre, and it’s hoping to make an impact in the east, such as Ontario and Quebec, where it’s been pushing harder since a recent CRTC ruling allowed it to share infrastructure with other big telecoms. On this, French mentions that Telus is focusing on areas with a high return (big populations) at first, but ultimately he says that “everyone deserves to have fibre at the end of the day,” and that’s the company’s goal.

Bell CFO Curtis Millen also talked a big game about a hopeful return to growth and really hit on the company’s fibre strategy. I found this to be an interesting twist, considering Bell has been spending a lot of money advertising that it’s paused its fibre rollout due to the same CRTC ruling that helped Telus move east. That said, we have since seen Bell launch fibre internet out west using Telus infrastructure, so it does seem like the company is finally playing ball again.

On top of that, Millen says that Bell is again planning to “build out fibre, load subs onto the network, build more fibre, load more subs, etc.” That said, he didn’t share where this would be happening or when. Notably, the company told me that there would be fibre in my neighbourhood in Toronto last summer, and it’s still not here, so it’s hard to take it on its word as it keeps flipping back and forth on its fibre rollout strategy.

Source: Desjardins conference Bell, Telus, Telus earnings, Bell earnings