The CRTC has approved changes to Bell Mobility’s wholesale roaming tariff, including an option to align rate renegotiation with a two-year cycle when a carrier negotiates roaming and mobile virtual network operator access together.
Telecom Order CRTC 2026-276, issued October 22, 2026, brings Bell’s tariff into line with earlier decisions on negotiated roaming rates and access to the radio network Bell shares with TELUS. The approval took effect that day, rather than the November 19, 2025 date Bell had requested.
Cogeco sought matching negotiation cycles
Bell’s original proposal said roaming rates could be renegotiated after three years. Cogeco asked for language allowing a two-year timeframe when wholesale roaming and mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, access are negotiated together.
An MVNO supplies wireless service using another carrier’s spectrum and radio access network, and sometimes other facilities or services. The commission’s 2024 framework had allowed MVNO access rates to be renegotiated every two years, while treating three years as reasonable for stand-alone wholesale roaming negotiations.
Cogeco said Bell’s wording should reflect the ability to align the two timelines in a combined agreement. Bell agreed the change would be helpful and proposed amending its tariff accordingly.
The commission accepted that response. It found that allowing the two services to be negotiated in the same agreements would promote competition and reduce administrative costs.
Earlier network-access ruling carried into the tariff
The revisions also implement a 2025 decision allowing a regional wireless carrier to obtain access to Bell and TELUS’s entire shared radio access network by subscribing to either company’s roaming service. Under the previous tariffs, access was limited to the portion associated with the company providing the roaming service.
Bell’s application added definitions and provisions dealing with commercial negotiation and final-offer arbitration, clarified the rates section and made administrative corrections. The commission found those changes consistent with its earlier decisions.
The order did not itself set new roaming prices. Bell said it had proposed no rate changes, and the commission’s approval concerned the tariff terms implementing the existing framework.
Bell was directed to issue revised tariff pages within 10 calendar days of the order. The decision records that obligation, rather than confirming the pages were issued or that any carrier has since obtained a particular negotiated rate.
