{"id":266149,"date":"2025-11-06T19:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T19:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/266149\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T19:14:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T19:14:11","slug":"bell-eyes-u-s-fibre-expansion-after-closing-ziply-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/266149\/","title":{"rendered":"Bell eyes U.S. fibre expansion after closing Ziply deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 The closing of BCE Inc.<\/a>\u2019s $5-billion purchase of U.S. internet provider Ziply Fiber in August helped boost the telecom giant\u2019s fibre internet subscription base in its latest quarter, as it aims to accelerate its infrastructure build south of the border.<\/p>\n

Bell Canada\u2019s parent company said Thursday it added 65,000 net new fibre subscribers in its third quarter, including U.S. operations.<\/p>\n

Based in Kirkland, Wash., Ziply Fiber offers fibre internet service in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, including Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Ziply added 9,000 net new fibre customers in August and September, its first two months officially under BCE\u2019s ownership.<\/p>\n

Its acquisition by Bell was funded largely though proceeds of BCE\u2019s $4.7-billion sale of its stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to rival Rogers Communications Inc. \u2014 a deal that also closed earlier in the quarter.<\/p>\n

BCE president and CEO Mirko Bibic said Ziply is now well-positioned to accelerate its fibre build and expand beyond its current four-state footprint.<\/p>\n

He told analysts on Bell\u2019s earnings call that fibre line construction is set to ramp up through 2026. Ziply\u2019s fibre network currently passes 1.4 million American homes, which BCE expects to grow to approximately three million by the end of 2028.<\/p>\n

Bibic said that in the longer term, BCE plans to expand its U.S. fibre footprint to eight million homes \u201cand we\u2019ll do that in a cost-efficient manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very pleased with Ziply\u2019s performance and we\u2019re looking forward to continued growth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe key thing is that it continues to perform ahead of our investment case and … as we ramp the build in 2026, that\u2019s just going to lead to better subscriber revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in Canada, Bell is also seeking to grow its fibre customer base in new provinces, however that comes in the form of reselling rivals\u2019 service through existing infrastructure. Bell announced last month will soon begin offering home internet in Alberta and B.C. \u2014 reselling fibre from Telus\u2019 network under the CRTC\u2019s wholesale framework.<\/p>\n

Bell chief financial officer Curtis Millen said those rules offer \u201can opportunity for us,\u201d despite the company having long fought against them unsuccessfully.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously our position is pretty clear on the rules and we favour regulation that incents investment,\u201d Millen said in a phone interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the rules are the rules. We have to compete in the environment that is in front of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bibic said a trial is underway for customers in Kelowna, B.C. and the company expects its full launch in Western Canada by January. He reiterated the offering will initially be available to Bell\u2019s \u201chighest value\u201d mobile customers in those provinces, with special pricing for bundled packages.<\/p>\n

In Ottawa, there\u2019s hope that Canadian telecommunications companies will expand their fibre network footprints at home too.<\/p>\n

The federal government\u2019s latest budget unveiled Tuesday included an announcement of measures aimed at incentivizing those network builds, as part of the Liberals\u2019 plan to spur investment through increased capital project spending.<\/p>\n

The budget mentioned a new \u201cdig once\u201d policy approach to the government\u2019s planned \u201cnation-building projects.\u201d Ottawa said that would encourage telecom companies to co-ordinate when installing fibre optic lines as part of the development of major projects.<\/p>\n

The government also teased plans to reduce regulatory hurdles when deploying telecom infrastructure across the country, including by consulting on a streamlined tower-siting process later this year.<\/p>\n

Millen said Bell would welcome any opportunity to more closely co-ordinate with the government and agencies that build critical infrastructure. But he cautioned Bell has already \u201cbuilt out a world-class fibre network\u201d in Canada.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanada is far more penetrated in terms of access to … fibre than in other jurisdictions and especially the U.S.,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, we\u2019re 75 per cent access to fibre and the U.S. is hovering around 50. I do think our customers appreciate the speed and reliability of our fibre network, and we just have to continue to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company added a net total of 26,111 retail high-speed internet subscribers in its third quarter, including through Ziply Fiber, which contributed to 11.2 per cent internet revenue growth. Net internet subscriptions were down 38.4 per cent from 42,415 in last year\u2019s third quarter.<\/p>\n

BCE reported a profit attributable to common shareholders of $4.50 billion or $4.84 per share in the quarter, which ended Sept. 30. That compared with a loss of $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share in the same quarter last year.<\/p>\n

It said its results were boosted by the sale of its minority stake in MLSE, as well as lower impairment charges, partly offset by higher income taxes.<\/p>\n

Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $6.05 billion, up from $5.97 billion a year earlier.<\/p>\n

On an adjusted basis, BCE said it earned 79 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 75 cents per share in the same quarter last year. Analysts on average had expected an adjusted profit of 72 cents per share, according to data provided by LSEG Data & Analytics.<\/p>\n

On the mobile side, BCE had a net gain of 11,511 postpaid phone subscribers in its third quarter, down 65.2 per cent from 33,111 net activations during the same period a year earlier. That continued a trend from recent quarters, which the company has consistently attributed to a \u201cless active market,\u201d slowing population growth because of federal immigration policies, and Bell\u2019s own focus on \u201chigher-value subscriber loadings.\u201d<\/p>\n

BCE\u2019s mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.04, down 0.4 per cent from $58.26 a year ago.<\/p>\n

It said that decrease was due to \u201congoing but abating\u201d competitive pricing pressures and greater discounting, lower data overage revenue from customers subscribing to unlimited or larger capacity data plans, and lower roaming revenue amid Canadian customers\u2019 decreased travel to the United States.<\/p>\n

Scotiabank analyst Maher Yaghi said those wireless metrics were in line with overall expectations, despite somewhat disappointing postpaid subscriber additions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Canadian telco business unsurprisingly continued to exhibit weakish results, but we expect the recent price ups in wireless to begin to support results in 2026,\u201d Yaghi said in a note.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first look at Ziply financials and its customer loading looked good. We don\u2019t expect consensus estimates to move much based on results from this quarter.\u201d<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Sammy Hudes, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.<\/p>\n

CTV News, BNN Bloomberg and CP24 are owned by Bell Media, which is a division of BCE.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 The closing of BCE Inc.\u2019s $5-billion purchase of U.S. internet provider Ziply Fiber in August helped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":266150,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48,15913,15914],"class_list":["post-266149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-hardware","tag-telecom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}